The Giygas Defense Initiative
by Sixth Street Sandman
Summary: A combination adaptation sequel to EarthBound in which a pseudomilitary organization rises up to defend the earth against the onslaught of the returning Giygas.A work in progress, heavily edited since its first writing and still undergoing editing.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 – The Gifted Stranger**

We'd known for some time that the invasion would be coming. It had been a good month before when Craig Casner's censors above his weapons complex deep in Summers first picked up activity. He'd called me that day to inform me, amongst others, that we once again had been called upon to defend Earth.

It was an overcast day, hot and humid, but stubbornly refusing to rain as I worked in my office on the 29th floor of the Enrich Flavor Building in Fourside, which I had rented along with floors 27-35 for use for the operation of my defense contractor business. Craig was operating a mercenary unit of sorts, training them and being paid handsomely by various governments for protection against both internal crime and problems and possible alien attacks since Ness had a few months before defeated the colossal threat of Giygas.

Not many people really had the slightest idea exactly how great a threat Giygas was. I had at that time been an insurance agent -- good money but not much fun -- when Craig brought to my attention the whole Giygas scenario. Giygas, the evil and terribly powerful alien megalomaniac, had invaded Earth with conquest on his mind; most people know that. His evil influence was turning good people evil and tame animals wild, and the most potent danger was the hordes of aliens and robots that he was letting loose in the world. It was then that Craig, Josh Wilson, Bobby Hokela and myself began the Giygas Defense Initiative, and I began Williams Contracting. The first thing I did was to contract a kid who lived in Twoson, code named "Apple Kid", who claimed he was an inventor, and we signed him to be the front for our projects (we didn't want Ness and his friends to know we existed at this point.) We gave him a "Receiver Phone" that only received incoming calls and couldn't make outgoing ones, with a tracking device built in so we could keep track of Ness's movements; it worked perfectly most of the way. Along the way, we also supplied Ness with a Pencil Eraser, a Yogurt Dispenser, Zombie Paper, and the Eraser Eraser, which sound very bizarre, and in truth are very bizarre, but were nonetheless key items for Ness and his friends.

It was then that Josh Wilson, who had been working with Craig training the GDI army in case it was needed to fend off an attack by Giygas, was kidnapped, as were Apple Kid and Dr. Andonuts, one of the world's foremost scientists and inventors and the father of Jeff Andonuts, one of Ness's traveling companions. We tracked him to a secret hideout within Stonehenge and informed Ness as such by masquerading as "Orange Kid". After Ness and his crew bailed out the captives, I accompanied Apple Kid and Dr. Andonuts to Saturn Valley where we built the Phase Distorter, our crowning achievement, a device that could travel through time, with the aid of Williams Contracting, some of the GDI's scientists, and the unbelievably talented race of Mr. Saturn.

Ness and his friends actually used the Phase Distorter to travel back in time, and there defeated Giygas in battle and drove him away from earth. We thought Giygas was gone for good, but Craig kept the GDI going on government funds just in case Giygas or some other threat should appear, and Williams Contracting became a very successful business.

Then came the day when the phone rang. "Williams here."

"Carl, we've got a problem," said Craig on the other end.

"Yeah, of course we have problems," I replied. "You're being taxed so that you only make a profit of eight million instead of ten, and my air conditioning isn't working right. Small world, huh?"

"Hey, I'll have you know I only make seven and a half million," he said. "But that's all insignificant now. Giygas is back."

I dropped the phone in shock; it hit my desk with a crack and fell to the floor. I shook the cobwebs out of my head and quickly picked it up. "Did you say Giygas is back!"

"We detected his presence somewhere outside Earth on our censors just a few hours ago. It's Giygas – or at least something very close. It's big time trouble."

I closed my eyes and felt the wrinkles coming way too early in life across my forehead. "Okay, give me the full story… what's going on?"

"We're picking up the presence somewhere outside Earth's atmosphere. Of Giygas, that is. But the more disturbing news is that there are thousands of Starmen assembling on the islands around Fiveville. He's raising his army. He's going to attack Summers and Toto. Probably Fourside, too." (Starmen were vaguely humanoid space robots mass-produced by Giygas, the alien infantry, so to speak.)

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"We fight back, of course. I'm going to call Josh, and Bobby's already here. We need to find the chosen four. They have to defeat him again. They're the only ones who can."

"If they don't?"

Craig paused. "They have to… or else. But as for us, we have to keep Giygas off civilian shores."

"Okay," I said. "Call a meeting. Two o'clock tomorrow. I'll get authorization from the government to force the presence of the chosen four in case..."

"Come on, Carl," Justin interrupted, "you know you won't need it. They'll come right along."

"I'll get the clearance, just in case," I said.

"Ever the cautious one," Craig responded.

"Alright, I'll be off for Onett right now."

From this point, any part of the story I tell is relayed information, pieced together from the accounts of those with whom I have spoken along the way.

I departed on the bus to Onett about an hour later. When I got there, I stopped at the bakery for lunch and then walked north to Ness's home and rang the doorbell. His mother answered, and looked perplexed upon seeing my black suit and tie. "Good afternoon ma'am," I said in my most professional voice. "I'm Carl Williams, President and CEO of Williams Contracting in Fourside. We require your son Ness's presence for a classified project tomorrow afternoon."

She blinked, trying to comprehend. "I… I'm not sure if he should go."

"Ma'am, you don't have a choice. I can forcibly have him taken there if need be. I assure you that no harm will come to him, and he will be home by evening. I'll be here by helicopter at 1 PM tomorrow. Tell Ness to be ready." And with that I departed and headed to Twoson. (Craig always criticized my straightforward ways, but in cases like these I always felt it best to get the job done as quickly and cleanly as possible.) In Twoson, I delivered the same story to Paula's parents, although they offered no resistance. Her mother seemed as if whatever happened to Paula in the entire world was the work of destiny. In any event, I returned to Fourside at this point and headed into my office, where I placed a call to Dr. Andonuts and informed him that he and Jeff needed to be at the meeting, and I also explained why. He promised they both would be there. I then boarded my personal chopper and set out for Dalaam.

I arrived in Dalaam at roughly 4 PM Dalaamese time (7 PM Eagleland Time) and landed near the palace. I walked in and asked to speak with Prince Poo, and was granted access to the royal chamber. I would take the more direct approach with him.

"Your highness," I said, bowing to one knee, "I require your presence at an important meeting tomorrow."

"What for?" Poo asked. "You should know I have a rigorous training schedule."

"Prince," I said, "Giygas is back."

"Wha…?" His bright eyes darkened, then widened. "It can't be..!"

"It is," I said. "Be at GDI headquarters in Summers at 2 PM tomorrow. The GDI commander will be expecting you."

"GDI… Giygas Defense Initiative…" he said. "Yes, I'm familiar with them. They worked on the Phase Distorter… I hear their leader is prominent in Summers."

"He is," I said. "This is a very important matter. Please be there."

"I will be there. Thank you." Poo bowed his head respectfully. I returned the gesture and left.

I returned in Fourside at about midnight and returned to my condo, where I phoned Craig at GDI headquarters. He was almost always up until 2 AM or later. "Craig here."

"Okay Craig, it's done. The chosen ones will be there."

"Excellent work. Did you talk to Josh?"

"Josh?" I said, frowning in perplexion. "No, should I have?"

"He wasn't there!" Craig exclaimed. "He should have been there by eight! I sent him to meet you."

"That's odd," I said. "He must've gotten sidetracked at a local establishment…"

Craig laughed. "He'd be about the last person in the world to do that… something must be up. If we don't hear from him by the morning I'll have to send an S and R." (Search and Rescue, he meant.)

Five minutes after I hung up, Josh Wilson paraded into my house with his usual self-created fanfare, and helped himself to my living room where I was sitting on the couch doing paperwork. "Bout time I found ya, Carl. I brought a guest for ya." He had to duck to get through the doorway. Josh was a giant, a freak of nature, seven feet tall and three hundred sixty pounds of muscle. This gave him the unusual quality of never feeling threatened by anyone or anything, from which he developed his richly boisterous, outspoken and forceful personality.

"Where've you been…" I stopped as my mind processed his words. "Guest?"

"Long story," he said, motioning toward the guest, a short, pretty, blond-haired girl who looked to be roughly our age (early twenties). Her long hair ran a third of the way down her back, unimpeded by any ties or clips. Her blemishless face was punctuated by a round chin and small, almost delicate mouth. She was staring at the floor as if intensely interested in its carpet fibers. Of course, Josh, raconteur extraordinaire that he is, went on to tell the whole story, length be damned.

He had been told by Craig to meet me in Fourside at either my home or my office. He flew in at about 9 and wandered into my office, where he was told by my secretary that I wouldn't be back until late and would probably go straight home. Josh decided to head down to Jackie's Café to kill some time. On his way, as he passed a desolate street corner he heard a sudden and short shriek coming from a wooded park area behind a building. He quickly ran for the area from which it came, and there found a young woman being ganged up on and tied up by a legion of six Starmen.

"You must beep come with us…" said one Starman. "You are click dangerous to Master's plan…"

"Get away from me!" the girl shrieked. She concentrated, and Josh watched as she used PSI Freeze – it looked like Gamma from his distance – to destroy a Starman, but they were too many, and in a flash they had knocked her down and tied her tightly. "NO!" she cried. "HELP me! Someone!" She was hysterical.

Josh took up his sword that he kept handy for just such an occasion (the opportunity to get in a fight, which he would _never_ pass up) and charged headlong into battle with these Starmen, not hesitating for an instant. After a minute or two of intense combat, he had succeeded in destroying all but two of them. These last two ran away, which unfortunately meant Giygas or whoever else they were working for would soon know all about what happened. Josh, realizing he couldn't do anything about it, turned his attention to the terrified girl. He untied her as gently as he could and helped her to his feet. "Bet you've never been so glad to see me in your life," he said.

"Have we met..?" the girl asked, her light blue eyes betraying her suspicion.

"Yup, we did," Josh said with that broad, endlessly self-amused smile of his. "Two minutes ago. And I bet you're glad to see me." His behemoth frame towered almost two feet over her; Josh's pure size instilled fear into the hearts of those he came in contact with, and this was no exception. "I'm Josh Wilson. You are..?"

"Laura…" said the girl, still fearful of Josh's size. She was thinking just then that looked like he could easily snap a tree like a toothpick, much less a small person like herself.

"Hmm…" Josh. "You use PSI. How did you get PSI powers?" PSI, I should note, is simply an abbreviation for the word "Psionic." A very few people in the world, most notably three of the chosen four (Ness, Paula, and Poo) had the capability to create various seemingly magical or paranormal effects through intense concentration of the mind. But, again, this is exceedingly rare; the aforementioned three were the only people of whom I was aware that were capable of consistently using PSI.

"I don't know…" Laura replied to Josh's question. "I guess I was born that way." She blushed, embarrassed by something.

Josh frowned and lowered his eyebrows in such a way that made it obvious he was thinking about what he should do about this situation. Finally, after a ten-second pause that seemed like forever, he said, "There's someone I'd like you to meet."

"Someone," of course, was me. So that brings us to this point, where they were standing in my living room. "Like I said, she uses PSI like a freakin' fiend. I'd only seen those three kids using it before."

I rubbed my hand along my cheek, betraying my fatigue. "Well, she'll certainly be helpful if she'd join us…" then I remembered that she was, in fact, standing a few feet away from me, so I addressed her directly. "You're in danger. For whatever reason, Giygas seems to want you out of his way."

"Who's Giygas!" she said with frustration. "I don't know what happened!" Her face had turned red in frustration. She was nearly hyperventilating.

"Alright, look," I said. "You have to trust me for one night, then we can explain it all to you. I have to get some sleep."

"Carl," Josh cut in, "we ain't staying here. We're gonna have to take a little vacation out to Summers this fine starry evening."

"Why in the bloody heck..?" I just wanted to sleep; it had been a long day, and my brain was begging for permission to shut it down for the night.

"Carl, think about it for just a moment," Josh said. "Giygas is after Laura here… and I'm sure he wouldn't mind it at all if he got us too. He's gonna be back, probably when we're asleep. So let's get the hell up outta here while we still have time. We take the chopper, it's only an hour and a half away."

I glanced at my watch. In an hour and a half, it would be two in the morning… but still, Josh was right. We couldn't afford to underestimate what we were up against. "Fine," I said with a sigh. "Let's get out of here."

Chapter 2 – The Escape 

I threw my most important documents into my briefcase (in case Giygas happened to ransack or, worse, destroy, my condo) and we moved speedily out the door, on our way back to the Enrich Flavor building, atop which the helipad was located. The building was locked up for the night, of course, but I activated the intercom and identified myself, and in a few minutes a night watchman came and allowed us entry. It wasn't particularly atypical an occurrence for me to arrive at the building after hours. We entered the elevator and headed up to the 48th floor, where we half walked, half jogged down the hallway to the helipad, where my helicopter was waiting. I opened the door and froze mid-step, my hand sliding off the door handle. To my horror, my chopper sat fully ablaze.

"What in the..!" Josh exclaimed. "Son of a..!"

I was shocked. I simply stood there with my mouth open for a full minute before I could gather the energy and concentration to produce any sound. "What the… Giygas must've done it… he's onto us… that thing cost me a million dollars!"

"_Aaaiieee_!" Laura shrieked.

"What!" Josh's head shot upward to view what she was looking at. It was a spaceship… a big one. A real big one. And its laser cannons were pointed straight at us.

I saw it a second later, and my eyes shot open. "Get outta here! NOW!" I shoved Laura through the doorway (shoving Josh's hulking frame would be about as effective as shoving the Enrich Flavor building itself), then dove in myself with Josh right behind me. Fortunately, he had the kindness to slam the door shut behind him just a split-second before loud explosions rocked the building as the spaceships fired.

"They're after us," said Josh. Realizing a second later what he had said, he added, "This report has been brought to you by Captain Obvious Inc."

"We have to get out of here, now," I said, but Josh was already on his way down the hall. "We have to get Craig to send a transport after us." Despite the obvious danger presently threatening our lives, I cringed at the thought of not getting to sleep until nearly 4 AM.

"Why are they trying to get us?" asked Laura, almost shrieking, still desperately confused about what exactly was going on.

"Like I said before, it's a long story. You'll find out all about it tomorrow." We hurried out of the hallway and took the elevator down to my office, where I rung Craig up on my speakerphone.

"GDI headquarters," said the night phone operator.

"Get Casner," I said. "This is Carl Williams."

Please hold." After a wait of a minute or so, Craig clicked on.

"Casner here."

"Craig, I need you to send an armored chopper to us right now."

"Who's 'us'?" asked Craig. "Did you find Josh?"

"He found me," I said. "And there's another girl here… I'll tell you about it later. But Giygas is after us. They torched my chopper and almost killed us."

"Oh my," said Craig. "They're acting fast. Okay… stay where you are and be prepared to fight or run. I'll send an armored transport right away. It'll be there in about an hour. Hit the panic button if something bad happens, alright?"

"Gotcha, Commander," I said.

"Now, tell me about this other girl you say is with you?"

"I don't know too much," I said. "But Giygas was trying to capture her when Josh came along and saved the day. She… she knows PSI, or so Josh says."

"Knows PSI!" Craig exclaimed. "Is he sure!"

"Yes, I'm sure!" Josh boomed. "She wiped a couple Starmen out, I watched her! That must be why Giygas wants to capture her."

"Is there… something wrong with me?" Laura said uncomfortably.

"Oh, so they're there," said Craig. "You guys are in trouble then. I'll arrange bedding for three… tell me what your name is, miss?"

"Laura…"

"OK, gotcha. We'll talk tomorrow morning. Your transportation has already been dispatched. They'll call you when they're waiting outside. Be careful."

I clicked off the phone and turned to Josh and Laura. "Not much we can do now but wait," I said.

"It's not safe," Josh said. "They know Craig's guys are gonna be coming… or at least I HOPE they would, if they think they're smart enough to conquer the world… they're gonna be coming after us."

"Hmm…" I wondered aloud. "I wonder if they're trying to do the same thing to the Chosen Four…"

"Chosen Four..?" Laura cut in.

"Kids," I replied to her. "Four kids, 13 years old, they defeated Giygas… but of course, you don't know who Giygas is either. You'll find out tomorrow. Be patient."

"I feel like a prisoner!" she almost shouted. "Why won't anyone tell me what's going on!"

Josh just looked at me. He had a face he could contort to say anything he wanted without actually speaking any words. Right then, his face was telling me "Well, how do YOU expect to explain it to her?" He gave a slight shrug as if to emphasize the point.

"Look, Laura, listen to me," I said. "We're 'holding you prisoner' because they'd kill or capture you if we didn't, and you would not want that…"

"Who..!" she started to cut in.

I cut her off, resuming my speech. "And you have no idea who 'they' are, either, and I realize that. But if we told you now, you wouldn't understand. You should wait until tomorrow. We're meeting someone, he'll tell you about it."

"Craig?" she said. "Is that who?"

"Indeed. But not only him, the Chosen Four we spoke of a minute ago will be there as well. Craig Casner is the head of the Giygas Defense Initiative, whose purpose is to prevent Giygas from conquering the world. He'll make you an expert on the whole thing by tomorrow evening."

"So, Giygas is back," Josh mused. "Figures. I was getting a little bored with peace, anyway…" He couldn't finish his thought before the room was shaken by an explosion just outside. I was thrown to the floor with a startled cry, and I heard Laura screaming and Josh shouting expletives.

"What the hell was that!" Josh shouted, as he and I scrambled to our feet and Laura scrambled for my desk.

"I'll give you one guess…" I said, drawing the sword I was keeping at my waist in my right hand and my laser gun in my left. In our line of work, carrying weapons for protection went without saying.

As if in reply, three gold-plated Starman Supers teleported into the room in front of us. "You are the -click- enemy…" said one of them. "You are to be -beep- terminated…"

"Better get ready to rumble…" Josh said, taking hold of his sword and glancing at me. One of the Starmen without warning fired off a beam which Josh narrowly dodged and barely missed Laura, who uttered another shriek but scrambled to her feet. The fight was fast; a flurry of motion of which I don't remember much, a hack and slash with my sword here, a laser to the chest there, Josh charging around everywhere. What I do remember is being pasted in the back with a laser and knocked to the floor, and when I whirled and started to rise, I watched in awe as a fierce rush of swirling blue wind surrounded and penetrated the Starman Super that had shot me, and it fell apart. That was it: they were all defeated.

"That was..!" I started, catching my breath.

"That was PSI Freeze," Josh said; he'd seen it as well. "Freeze… Beta, if my guesswork is on target." (The GDI classified PSI abilities according to strength with Greek letters: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Omega.)

"How did you do that!" I said, turning toward Laura once on my feet.

"I can fight too, in my own little way," she replied with a half-smile.

"Hey, I'll drink to that," said Josh.

"Guys, we need to get out of here as soon as possible," I said. "There will be more coming where those three came from. A lot more, probably."

"So where we gonna go?" Josh said. I could sense in his voice the coming sarcasm. "Oh, wait! That's right, there's the Safety Zone out behind the museum where the rules say they aren't allowed to touch us! Let's just skip on over there!"

I made a motion as if to slap him with a backhand, rolling my eyes. "We'll have to run or hide, obviously." It was then that a fast, red laser beam shattered the window and whizzed past my head. "Aaagh!" I shouted in surprise as I hit the floor instinctively.

"They're gonna blow this whole building sky-high before long," Josh said, relating to us what he'd just realized. "We gotta get out of here now!" (How many times had Josh or I made this observation by this point?) He threw the door open and motioned for me to go first, because he obviously wanted me to be the first to get shot, then Laura followed me and Josh took the rear. I ran for the elevator and was about to push the button when Josh shouted, "You fool! They're probably waiting for us there! Take the bloody stairwell!"

"They'll be waiting for us there too!" I replied, annoyed but realizing Josh was right and I just wasn't thinking.

"You're right," said Josh. "We'll have to jump for it!"

"JUMP!" Laura shouted. "Jump where!"

"Out the window," I said. "We'll rappel down to ground level. You'll have to ride piggyback with Josh."

"This'll be a pleasant little trip," Josh said as we hurried back toward a storage closet in my office where we kept rappelling cords and gloves for just such an emergency. (You have to think of everything if you're planning to fight against alien evil.) "C'mon, we'll sail out that window over there!" Josh motioned toward a large window along the hallway.

"I'm not jumping out a window!" Laura shouted. "I'm terrified of heights!"

"Close your eyes then, 'cuz you're going," Josh said as we hurried towards the window. Laura just stood there behind us, not budging.

"I'm not going! I'm not going to jump!"

"You are!" Josh shouted, running back to her. He leaned down a little so they were face-to-face, and said two words. "Trust me." He then slung his massive right arm (which in itself probably weighed almost as much as she did) around her back and threw her over his shoulder, using his left arm to ready the cord. I tied my cord securely to a reinforced ceiling hook. Josh handed me his cord and I tied it to the same. Laura squirmed a little, not so much out of refusal to jump but out of fear; she obviously was very afraid of the jump, as she'd said. "Hang on _really_ tight," Josh said.

"You go first!" Josh then said, turning to me. "We're right behind you!" Josh was busy transferring Laura into the most secure grasp he could muster, saying something like "hold still!" He had her over his right shoulder; she wrapped her left arm around Josh's neck and her right under his arm, locking her hands and holding on tight. Josh planned to rappel one-handed, keeping his right hand securely behind her right knee at his waist level. I turned, opened the window, gripped my cord, and jumped clear into open space in one swift motion.

I was sailing out starting from maybe six hundred feet off the ground. It was a long way to rappel all at once, and tricky given the constant laser fire, but I concentrated as best I could and made it down safely. I immediately ran clear, allowing Josh room to hit the ground with Laura. He did, just barely ahead of a laser that missed Laura's head by about two feet. Laura was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"You're alive," he half-shouted. "Relax! I told you to trust me, we're on the ground! We gotta run!" She breathed hard, probably hyperventilating, for a few seconds, unable to move away. Josh was about to scoop her up again when she regained enough composure to run.

"Come on guys," I said. "We have to find somewhere to hide out, and we have to get away from this building before it blows!" A small group of Starmen, now about two hundred yards away, were already swarming toward us. Laura re-gathered herself well enough, and the three of us took off running past the Topolla theater, then we ducked behind an apartment building under the cover of a nearby stand of trees. We were hidden well, and it was very dark, so the Starmen were apparently unable to locate us.

Josh leaned around to take a look at the Enrich Flavor building, looked for a few seconds, then ducked back in with us. "Man," he said. "There's one big-ass mother ship, I guess, and I see a few little ones… there's people running scared all over the place."

"I gotta tell Craig to stay the heck away from there and pick us up here." I grabbed my waist communicator and flipped it on, and waited for acknowledgement.

"Casner here."

"Yeah Craig, we have a problem."

"Let me file that under 'What Else is New'…"

"Seriously," I said. "Giygas has attacked. He thinks we're still in the Enrich Flavor building… they're gonna blow it up."

"You can't be serious!" Craig exclaimed. "That chopper should be there for you any minute now… I'd better tell him not to go there. Where are you now?"

"We're hiding behind an apartment building across the street from the Topolla, kind of," I said. "Tell him to land near the water, we'll catch him there."

"Gotcha. He'll be there in fifteen minutes, max. Craig out."

"Woooo," Josh said. He stretched himself out as best he could. "Well, this has certainly been an interesting evening. Hope it's been as good for you. Sorry to say I won't be here all week."

"What time did you say it was?" I said. Suddenly, I felt exhausted, probably from lack of sleep (it was in fact a little past 2:30) and physical fatigue from the excitement of the past half hour. "Man, I am so tired…"

"You aren't the only one," said Josh, jerking his head. Laura was fast asleep, her head rested against a patch of moss at the base of a tree. "Me, I'm ready to run the Ironman triathlon if I need to." Of course, I'm sure he was just as tired, but he never admitted it, even to himself. He generated a huge yawn. "My, oh my…"

We exchanged some insignificant words that I no longer remember in the few minutes before the chopper arrived. It was an armored stealth gyrocopter with room for 4, which was what we needed. I noticed it first as we chatted away. "Chopper's here."

"About freaking time," Josh said, hopping to his feet. I followed suit, and then leaned over and shook Laura awake. She gave a jump and a startled half-cry, and for a moment terror seemed to pass through her eyes before she regained her senses.

"Shh, quiet. Our ride's here. Let's go." I took her by the arm and helped her to her feet, and Josh jogged toward the chopper. As we were about halfway there, there was a sudden explosion 20 feet to the right of where the chopper had landed. We all scattered instinctively to the ground. "What the heck!" I shouted.

"Giygas!" Josh said. "It's a battle cruiser!" He snatched his communicator and found the chopper's frequency. "Get off the ground, now!" he yelled into it. "Evasive action! Sweep low past us so we can grab on and then get out of here!" The chopper immediately slid along the ground on its wheels (being a modified gyro, it had wheels) and took off, climbing rapidly away from us and then turning sharply around and heading straight for us. Josh took hold of Laura before she could argue, and I got myself prepared. We were going to have to grab hold of the wheel carriage and pull ourselves into the chopper in mid-air. The chopper sailed toward us and suddenly slowed down. As it passed, Josh and I simultaneously jumped and secured hold of the bars, me with two hands, Josh with one. The chopper was climbing, and Laura was again expressing her fear of heights (and also death lasers) by screaming. Josh couldn't climb while holding her with one arm, so I quickly climbed the wheel structure, which was basically the same as climbing a ladder, and hopped into the copter (the door was open for us to get in.) I then knelt over, the wind whipping me fiercely until I could barely avoid being blown backwards.

"Try and hand her up here!" I screamed over the noise of the engine and wind. Josh apparently heard, or else just knew what he had to do, because he swung his right leg onto the wheel and grabbed firm hold, then pulled himself up with his right arm. When he had hold of the bar, he lifted his left arm as far up as he could. I knelt over and reached far, and with some effort, managed to grab hold of Laura's left wrist. "I got you!" I screamed to her. "Grab hold of my other arm!" She did so with such lightning speed that it startled me, but Josh gave her a shove that sent us both tumbling backwards into the cockpit. Josh leaped in a second later, the door was closed, and we were safe and plotting a course for Summers. We all lay in kind of a pile on the cramped floor, Laura's back pinning my legs down in an uncomfortable position, but both of us too exhausted to move, and Josh propped himself up against the back of the pilot's seat, breathing hard.

"Whew…" he said between breaths. "Wasn't that about the best party you ever saw?"

"Did we lose them?" I called to the pilot.

"Affirmative," he called back. "That was one heck of a maneuver you guys pulled! Are you okay?"

"We're fine," Josh shouted. "I took a graze in the leg, but I'm fine, and they're just tired."

"Graze in the leg?" I said, looking up. As I moved, it seemed to spring Laura to life, as she got up off my lower legs into a sitting position, still on the floor, her knees up against her chin.

"Yeah," said Josh. "I think the wheels are damaged, we took a hit just as you grabbed hold of Laura. Some piece of something nailed my leg, but nothing's broken or torn, I don't think." I then saw the injury: it truthfully looked severe. His pant leg was torn open halfway up the thigh and basically torn off up to the knee, and an open wound ran along the side of his calf at least a foot long, along with many more minor cuts all along the lower leg. Blood was oozing slowly out of the wounds and had collected in a small pool on the floor. "I gotta get this thing cleaned out when we get there, though," he said, running his hand along the nasty gash.

"I feel sick…" Laura said as she climbed up into the back seat and lay across both of the two seats back there. "Uhhhhh…"

"You okay?" I got up on one knee; she had taken my seat by lying across it, so I'd have to settle for the floor, which I figured wouldn't matter since I'd soon be asleep anyway. "She doesn't look too well."

"Motion sickness, probably, and exhaustion doesn't help," said Josh. "Hope this thing comes equipped with barf bags…" He paused, then changed course. "It's cramped back here. I'm bigger than you, so I'm taking the front. Either move her or have fun on the floor." He got up and, planting on the bad leg as if nothing was wrong with it, leapt over the back of the shotgun seat and settled into it.

Laura was already drifting back into a fitful sleep, so I opted to have my fun on the floor. It wasn't very long before I fell asleep, victim also to mental and physical exhaustion. When my eyes slowly opened, it was because Josh was shaking me vigorously. "Hey sleeping beauty, time to get up before someone else tries to blow us up."

"Mmm…" I said, rising to a sitting position and rubbing my face; my body was sore, probably from sleeping in a contorted position. "We're at GDI headquarters? What time is it?"

"Little past 4," said Josh. "We're slated for our meeting at 2… that ain't too much sleep, we'll have to be up by ten." I rose to my feet and gingerly hopped out of the chopper. Josh followed suit, then suddenly turned and climbed back up. "Forgot something." A minute or so later, Laura emerged and stepped down, followed by Josh. We walked quickly into the safety of the massive GDI headquarters building, where a guard led us to Craig Casner's office a little ways down the hall.

"Ah, you made it," Craig said, rising from his seat behind his desk. "Quite an adventurous night you guys have had, I bet."

"Ask some other time," said Josh. "And when we're done here, I need my leg cleaned out." He turned sideways and pointed to his chopped-up left leg. Craig winced.

"You must be Laura," Craig said, nodding towards her. "Craig Casner, CEO of the Giygas Defense Initiative." Laura, still not feeling well apparently, nodded silently. "You don't look too well. You should go with Josh to the medical center."

"I just want to get to bed," I said. "Can we continue this in the morning?"

"Yeah, it is kinda late, isn't it?" Craig mused. "Right, you and J-Wil have room 203, and Laura has 204. I'll be in 200. We'll meet down in the café at 11:30, I'll send our wake-up call for 11. Got it?"

"No," I said. "I'm too tired to really care. I got the room 203 part, so I'm going to bed." I turned and walked out, and Josh and Laura followed, and they went for the medical center while I went to my room.

I went straight to sleep, but was naturally awakened by Josh crashing through the door at a sprint. "Nice," said Josh, opening the drawers. "We got a change of clothes ready to go. How thoughtful. But look here – GDI uniforms." I groggily looked, and of course he was right. Craig was already prepared for war. I crashed back on my bed, in any case, and was again asleep within seconds.

Chapter 3 – The Meeting 

I suddenly awakened to the sound of a very loud buzzer going off. It was coming from speakers mounted in all four corners, so that a 95 decibel buzz blasted the room, shattering us awake enough that we wouldn't fall back asleep. "Wow, rise and shine," said Josh, blinking, then yawning. "First dibs on the shower." He didn't take long, and we were both showered and donning our uniforms twenty minutes later; my watch read 11:22. "Man, I'm about ready to eat a horse," Josh said. "Raw, if I have to. Still alive, for all I care, but I'm eatin' something." He threw the door open and we headed for the café on the far end of the particular building we were in. We got there at 11:29 and Craig and Laura were already there. "How long've you guys been here?" Josh said.

"Five minutes," Craig replied. "Have a seat, I ordered your favorite, Josh."

"A dozen crème-filled, with chocolate icing?"

"I know you well enough."

"What happened to the raw horse?" I said.

"Some Summers government board said I could only feed him one raw horse a month, and I did two weeks ago," Craig deadpanned.

"I'm not the pickiest eater on earth," Josh said. "Say Craig, are you gonna eat that placemat?"

"I try to only eat placemats on Tuesdays and Thursdays," Craig replied dryly.

"Hooray for me," Josh said, grabbing Craig's placemat and theatrically shaking salt on it.

"He's not REALLY gonna eat that, is he?" Laura said, staring at the placemat. Craig and I locked eyes and then started laughing.

"Josh, you know the doctors won't be happy if they have to pump that plastic out of your stomach again…" Craig said. "That would be the third time this month."

"But I'm hungry!" That's when the food arrived. Some pastries for Craig, a dozen crème-filled donuts for Josh, some bran cereal for me, some muffins for Laura. Josh was, of course, the first one finished eating, even though he had more food than the three of us combined. "Mmm mm, good," he said, nipping at the corners of his mouth with his napkin in a mockingly dainty fashion.

A few minutes later, I finished my meal last, and Craig began. "Okay, let's get down to business. To the meeting room." He rose and led the way out of the café and down the hall, to a large, rectangular room with glass windows – ceiling to floor – overlooking the Summers shore, adorned with a long mahogany table and 20 well-cushioned chairs, nine on each side and one on each end. Craig took the end seat; Josh filled in to his right, and Laura and myself to his left. "All right," said Craig. "In another hour or so, Ness and company will arrive and the real fun will begin."

"Can you tell me what's going on now?" asked Laura.

"I can," Craig replied. "But first, I should update you guys on what's going on in Fourside."

Josh perked up. "Yeah, what DID happen there anyway?"

Craig pulled some papers from a briefcase. "All last night, most of the citizens of Fourside saw Giygan battle cruisers – flying saucers, or UFO's, if you will – flying around and firing upon the Enrich Flavor Building. At 3:12 AM, the Enrich Flavor Building was leveled. Utterly destroyed. Blown to bits. The rubble scattered all over the city as far as the outer walls."

"Oh my…" said Josh. I grimaced.

"No..!" Laura started. Fourside was, after all, her hometown, and the Enrich Flavor its center of government.

"It gets worse, unfortunately," Craig said to Laura. "At 3:19, the Lakeside Apartments building was leveled as well… completely destroyed. In both cases, there were no survivors. 412 killed at the Enrich Flavor, 98 killed at Lakeside…"

We saw the wave of horror take control of Laura; it was in her eyes. She opened her mouth to scream, but it wobbled and no sound was produced. Craig sat silent and looked down at the table. Josh shook his head, and his face seemed to say "Those bastards will pay for this…"

Finally, Laura spoke, barely above a whisper, tears welling up. "My home… my friends… all gone… WHY!" she finally shouted before breaking into sobs. I exchanged a glance with Craig; his return glance portrayed an odd blend of helplessness – he couldn't change the past – and determination – he could and would change the future. "Why is this happening!" Laura shrieked. "Why me!"

"You're in danger," said Craig. "You're here because we're going to protect you from Giygas. Do you understand he was trying to capture or kill you? That's why he destroyed the building."

"Who's Giygas!" she cried. "Tell me! Please!"

"It's a long story," Craig replied. "If you can calm down and listen carefully, I'll tell it."

He paused; there was silence for a minute or so as Laura calmed and composed herself. Finally, Craig started. "All right, let's begin." He rose and began to pace slowly about as he related the story of Giygas and how he had been defeated by Ness and his friends, and then an explanation of who or what Giygas is and how we must again defeat him. "Giygas, as his henchman Pokey had said, is not merely the wielder of Evil; he is the embodiment of Evil itself. He is the Evil Power. Ness did not defeat him completely; Giygas did not die. He simply retreated when he was growing weak. And now he has reassembled his army and returned. And he's attacking more directly. By destroying the buildings in Fourside, he has again declared war on Earth, and intends to dominate and/or destroy it. The GDI, or Giygas Defense Initiative, exists to repel Giygas's attack and defeat him once and for all. Giygas fears and seeks to destroy good PSI; There is good PSI, and there is evil PSI. Good is always triumphant over evil; that is why Giygas is trying to destroy those with good PSI, which is why he's trying to destroy you. You, however, may be able to aid in destroying him, if you're interested…"

Josh and I exchanged glances at this. "You have two options," Craig continued. "Well, three, actually. You can walk out of here and go home, except you have no home to go to, and you'll be killed. You can stay right here, and we'll keep you safe as best we can. Or you can take part in the coming war and aid us in destroying Giygas."

Laura sat silent, staring at the table. A small tear rolled down her face.

"You don't have to decide now," said Craig. "But I would like you to remain here when the Chosen Four arrive for our conference. Today we go to war against Giygas… again." Craig was businesslike, especially in serious situations like this one, but he was a compassionate man. He spoke to Laura in a methodical but gentle tone of voice. He was a very easy man to trust.

We sat around and chatted for awhile about the war, about the last day (it was quite remarkable to explain the whole thing to Craig, who took it all in, nodding as if it wasn't all that unusual or surprising), to whittle away the time before the Chosen Four made their appearance. At 1:52, the intercom flashed on. "Commander, Paula has arrived."

Craig's head snapped up. "Escort her in immediately."

"Understood."

"Okay, we're going to get down to business now," Craig said to us. "We have to set the Chosen Four to work against him personally again, while we handle the military operations."

Josh cracked his knuckles. "I'm up for cracking some heads right about now."

"Hokela was supposed to be here," said Craig. "He's late; that worries me."

"Bobby's never late…" I said.

The door slid open. "Here we are," said a soldier, who promptly left.

"Welcome, Paula," said Craig, rising. "We haven't met yet. I'm GDI Commander Craig Casner. These people here are, in order, Laura… well, I honestly don't know what her last name is; Carl Williams, and Josh Wilson."

"St. Clair," said Laura.

"Giygas is back," said Paula, taking the words right out of Craig's mouth. Craig looked surprised. "I could sense it… it was him who attacked Fourside last night and killed all those people. What's GDI?"

Craig turned to me and shrugged. "She's a psychic." he turned back to Paula and spoke. "GDI stands for Giygas Defense Initiative. We're a military operation whose purpose is to do all possible to destroy Giygas. Of course, you should know as well as I do that no military attack stands a chance against Giygas himself… which is where you come in. The Chosen Four must do it again."

Paula slowly took a seat next to Josh, who was roughly four times her size. She was small even for a fourteen year old. "I feel Giygas's presence…" she said, "but I don't know where… how do we find him..?"

"I suspect he's attacking from some point besides the present again," said Craig. "But that's where our espionage expert comes in."

"Must mean the cloaked one," Josh said.

The intercom flipped on. "Commander, General Hokela and Ness have both arrived."

"Send them in. Well, it seems you'll be meeting him soon."

A minute later, Ness walked in, followed by Bobby Hokela. He (Bobby) was the world's foremost expert on "assassin science", as he called it, and espionage. He trained and led a whole regiment of specially selected people who did similar work to what he did. The standard GDI officer's uniform was mostly blue, but Bobby's was all black, and he wore big, heavy, one-piece, shiny silver shades at all times, even at night and even indoors. No one had ever seen his eyes, at least not that I'm aware of; there were, of course, rumors that there was some deformity in them and that he hid them. He said that it was key that no one see his eyes because you can read a man's thoughts and emotions by looking in his eyes. I think he was both right and truthful in that. "Bobby," typically a child's nickname, seems like an odd name for such a cold, deadly man, but that was his actual given name, and he was vehement upon being called by it. You get used to it.

"Nice of you to join us, Bobby," said Craig. Ness took a seat next to Paula, and Bobby took his next to Laura on our side of the table, saying nothing as usual. Bobby never spoke unless it was necessary. "Ness, allow me to introduce ourselves." He went through our names again, ending with Bobby. "And this is Bobby Hokela, our chief assassin and spy. His assignment is to find Giygas for us." Bobby seemed to be looking at Ness and Paula, although obviously no one could really tell where his eyes were looking from behind the shades.

"What kept you, Bobby?" asked Josh. "You're late."

"UFO's," said Bobby. "Giygas is following us everywhere we go. He knows who we are and what we're doing. More importantly, he knows where we are."

Craig's face narrowed. "So do you expect an attack against GDI Headquarters?"

"Yes," replied Bobby. "Not for a while, though. But expect it."

"Lovely," said Craig. "I can hardly wait."

"Our immediate concern is whacking Giygas," I said.

"Yes, indeed it is," said Craig, turning back to the original point of conversation when the speaker came on again to inform us that Dr. Andonuts and his son Jeff had arrived.

A minute or so later the two entered the room and, with a brief exchange of pleasantries, seated themselves across the table from me, next to Paula. "So Giygas is back…" Dr. Andonuts said with a tone of distinct tiredness.

Craig frowned. "Who told you that?"

"Why else would we be meeting here?" Andonuts replied. "Say, are there any donuts?"

"I ate them all," Josh said. "You shoulda got here earlier."

Craig continued with the subject of origin. "Yes, Giygas is back," he said. "As of now, you are GDI enlisted, and will remain here to either fight or stay for your safety. Of course," he said, nodding toward Jeff, "I'm sure you will fight. We need you Chosen Four to do it again."

"Giygas Defense Initiative…" Jeff said. "Dad told me about it awhile back."

Click went the intercom. "Commander, Prince Poo has arrived."

"Send him in," replied Craig. "Let's wait for Poo to get up here," said Craig. "Then we'll get down to our real business."

We sat in silence for a minute or so until Prince Poo strode in the door. "I'm sorry for being late," he said. "I was held up talking to a girl."

"He-eeey, there's the surprise of the century!" Josh cut in. "Actually, Carl does that all the time too, now that I think about it. Can hardly keep the ladies off him."

"Sure, Josh," I said. Poo took his seat, and Craig began.

"Right, let's cut to the chase here, ladies and gentlemen. Here's what we know about Giygas right now: He's set up shop around Fiveville. Our intelligence indicates heavy fortifications much stronger than those we saw at the Stonehenge Base when it was active. The prospect of a full military assault on it is next to impossible. They have too much manpower… or, more accurately, robot power. The problem with robots is that they can easily be mass produced, battle-ready, as fast as we can kill them off, whereas training human troops takes too much time.

"Giygas is planning an attack – where, we don't know. I suspect he'll do one of two things: attack Fourside, which he can bowl over quite easily and then have a starting point to assault Eagleland. Or, since he's quite aware of our existence, it seems, he may attack Summers and Toto with the intent of forcing a showdown with the GDI before we're ready for it. He could also directly attack our headquarters from the air, but like his, it's extremely well-fortified against air attack."

"Right," I said. "So what are we doing about it?"

"It's quite obvious what we have the Chosen Four here for. You four are going to need to personally defeat Giygas – again. The basic plan is this – the GDI creates a diversion by attempting to fend off Giygas's attack when it comes. While that is going on, the four of you are going to need to infiltrate his base – Bobby's a master of sneaking into fortified positions undetected, he'll help you with that – and seek Giygas as quickly as possible. Judging by the Apple of Enlightenment's previous prophecy, you four are the only ones capable of defeating Giygas. Our role is to alleviate the pressure on you while you find him. You've done it before – I'm sure you can do it again."

After a moment of silence, Ness spoke up. "I guess we don't have a choice," he said. "We're gonna have to do it."

"Indeed!" said Poo. "We can do it. We will do it."

"So we're just going to sit around and wait for Giygas to attack us?" said Ness. "Are you sure about that?"

"You know what I'd like?" I cut in.

"Carl, you know that stuff is illegal…" Josh said. I'd left myself wide open for that jab.

I widened my eyes mockingly at Josh. "Josh, not here!" I stage-whispered. "Actually," I said, returning to full voice, "I'd like to try and find that Apple of Enlightenment, or at least another prophecy from it."

Craig frowned thoughtfully. "Wouldn't be a bad idea…"

"Yeah, except that we have no idea where or how to look," said Josh. "That'd be a waste of our time, and we're gonna have to be getting ready for war."

"Some people we met before talked about the Apple of Enlightenment," said Ness. "Maybe one of them would know something?"

"The Apple of Enlightenment speaks to chosen people at times through dreams, I've heard," said Paula. "I've never received anything from it, though."

"My Master speaks often of prophecies from the Apple," said Poo. "We might want to talk to him."

"I have nothing to contribute on this present topic," Jeff offered.

"Didn't that voodoo guy who hangs out in the desert with all those monkeys tell us something about the Apple of Enlightenment..?" asked Josh.

Craig nodded. "Talah Rama. We should contact him as well. But all in due time… Bobby, perhaps you would want to check out the Apple?"

"No," replied Bobby. "I have to prepare the assassins for war. I also have to train Ness and his friends in the ways of breaking and entering."

Craig sighed. "True… we can put it on the back burner."

"No, I sense we're onto something here," I said. "I'll go talk to them about it."

"Not alone, you aren't," said Craig. "You're not Bobby, and you're a target."

"I'll go with him," Laura spoke up. Craig, startled, turned toward her. "I want to help with something…" she said almost sheepishly.

"Still too dangerous," said Craig. "You're both major targets, you aren't trained, and Giygas is going to be hot after you."

"We really can't just let this go, Craig," I said. "Let us go. She can defend herself, and you know I can. We'll bail at the first sign of trouble, alright? This is a stealth mission anyway."

Craig paused, and then breathed heavily. "You give your word you'll return the second you see anything Giygas-related near you?"

"Yes. You know you can trust me. I wouldn't risk putting either of us in a dangerous situation."

"Alright, then. We'll disband this meeting for now," he said, turning toward the group. "Josh, you show the Chosen Four to their quarters, and have a full watch set up over them. Then you two start military preparation, and monitor for any activity in Fiveville."

"Understood," said Josh, rising, Bobby as well. "Well folks, it ain't prison, but it sure ain't the Holiday Inn. We did clean the mattresses a few months ago… didn't we?" He shrugged and beckoned for the door and waited for the Four to exit before going himself, leaving Laura, Craig and myself.

Craig sat down for the first time in a while. He breathed heavily again – something he did often when his mind was laden with things – and then looked up at Laura and spoke. "Laura, you're going to need a weapon. Is there anything you'd feel comfortable using?"

"I… I don't know…" she said. She obviously had never really used any sort of weapon.

"Well then," said Craig, perceiving the same thing I had, "we can train you to use something. Do you think you could learn to use a laser rifle? Or would you be more comfortable with a sword, or blunt weapon?"

She thought for a moment, her eyes focused on the table as if something interesting was there. "I don't think I want to be hitting things from close," she said after a brief silence.

"Alright, that's no problem," said Craig. "Before you leave, Carl can train you in the ways of handling a laser rifle."

"Well, first, I need to talk to Dr. Andonuts about our technological advances and such," I said. "Can I talk to you in a couple hours, maybe?"

"Don't waste too much time, Carl," said Craig. "We don't have a whole lot of it."

"I know, I know," I said. I rose from my seat. "Well, you two can iron everything else out, and I'll be back in a bit." Laura's actions seemed to betray that she was warming up to Craig, and I was getting a funny sense that perhaps I should leave them alone to talk for awhile.

"You know where to find Laura when you're done, right?" Craig called.

"Either in her room or in the weapons training facility," I said. "I know this building as well as you do, Commander." With that, I strode out the door and started on my way to Tech Center, which was a massive room located on the east side of the building. It was where all of the GDI's scientific research and testing went on as they constantly developed new technology for tracking and fighting Giygas. I wanted to ask Dr. Andonuts about the prospects of a Phase Distorter IV, as well as a Sky Runner III, which I hoped we could mass-produce and turn into a combat ship. Of course, we'd need to iron out the problem with it not being able to land properly if that were to be the case.

Meanwhile, back in the meeting room, Craig was addressing Laura. "So, I haven't heard much about you yet," he said, leaning back in his chair. "What's your story?"

Laura hesitated. "I…"

Craig rose and strode to the window, gazing out of it while he spoke. "No matter how unsure you seem, I can tell you're an unusually smart girl. And you're not sure what to think of me – I come across as a bit aristocratic, a bit too concerned with my leadership of the GDI and perhaps not concerned enough with the people I'm talking to." He turned to Laura. "Is this right?"

She was a bit surprised at being told her thoughts. "How do you know?" she asked.

Craig smiled. "Carl says I'm perceptive. I think it's more of a lucky guess. But how can a man claim to know others when he doesn't know himself? Perhaps I am a bit too concerned with the GDI – but please don't think I don't care about people. I want to hear what you've come from – and where you plan to go." He again sat.

Laura allowed a smile to betray her. "I'm from Fourside," she said. "I was going to the Fourside Academy, I was studying astronomy. I lived in…" she closed her eyes briefly, thinking of her now-destroyed home, "…I lived in the Lakeside Apartments, on the top floor… I used to enjoy sitting out on my balcony on summer nights, just relaxing…"

Craig nodded. "That does sound relaxing. I haven't had a chance to do anything like that lately. Well… I hope you don't think I'm trying to coerce you into helping me… I'm trying to help you in every way I can. I'm worried about you because Giygas is after you."

"But why are you worried about me? Is it just because of my PSI?"

"No." Craig shook his head. "Your PSI truthfully has only a nominal usefulness to the GDI. And Giygas can't do a whole lot with it, either… but I first formed the GDI because I wanted to protect people against Giygas. And right now, he's after you. I feel it my duty to protect you, then." Craig was maintaining his front of professionalism. He was an unusual man.

"Are those other guys… Josh and Carl, are they your friends? Or just your… colleagues?"

"Friends," he said. "Very good friends, inseparable. We go way back, practically to birth. They're nice guys – much nicer than I am, as I'm sure you'll agree."

"You've all been very nice…" she said. "You're nice, too, at least I think so. Are you just being nice to me?"

"Of course I'm being nice to you," Craig replied. "Trying to, at least. But I think what you mean is, am I treating you differently than other people? I don't know. I suppose you'll have to judge that for yourself – as soon as Josh figures it out he'll let everyone know."

"Josh is…" Laura trailed off, unable to find a suitable word to describe him. No such word exists, of course.

"Heh, Josh is unique, to say the least," Craig laughed. "You'll never meet a more loyal or trustworthy friend in your life, though, for all his quirkiness. He cares a great deal."

"Yeah…" Laura mused. "So, what am I going to do here, besides the Apple of Enlightenment thing?"

"That's for you to decide. I expect you and Carl will find something good – it may take you quite a while to find what you're looking for. Of course, I'll help after I finish my commanding duties with operating our military."

"All right," said Laura. "Is Carl… what's he like? I mean, is he a good person with this kind of thing?"

Craig smiled. "You'll like Carl. Everyone does. The man's just too smart – he reads between the lines. He can figure out what he's looking for before anyone else even knows he's looking for it, if you know what I mean."

"I think so."

"You'll have to go as civilians," Craig said. "At first, I thought I'd send you in uniform, but that's too conspicuous. The first thing you two will need to do is take a little shopping trip for clothes, seeing as how I'm sure your wardrobe has been… damaged by Giygas's attack on Fourside."

"All right," said Laura.

"I have to go now," said Craig, rising again. "You should return to your room. Carl will meet you there when he's done tinkering around down at Q Branch." ("Q Branch" is what we called our research and development complex, styled after the James Bond movies.) "And Laura, let's talk again sometime soon."

"Thank you for helping me… Commander? Craig?" Laura wondered aloud how to address him.

"Craig," Craig said. "My friends call me by name."

"Oh… well, I wasn't sure, because Carl was calling you 'Casner'."

"That's because there were others around," said Craig with a smile. "Normally, Carl and Josh and Bobby address me by first name. And you should as well."

"Okay, Craig… thank you," said Laura.

"I'll talk to you this evening," Craig said as he left the room with a smile on his face.

Chapter 4 – The Capture 

"Right, well, the mobility of the thing isn't a problem at all," I was saying. "It's just the fact that we'd like to be able to use it more than once."

"We can do that," said Dr. Andonuts. "I think the problem is the fact that the landing gear is not flexible enough for a quick landing; it has to be gently set down, and it doesn't react well to air pressure changes outside the craft."

"In the middle of a dogfight, we don't have time to gently set it down. So, we're going to need to develop a better system of landing without changing the shape."

"General Williams!" a GDI soldier had tracked me down. "You are to take Laura to weapons training, sir!"

"Alright, thank you," I said, and the soldier took his leave. "Well, you can work with our scientists on this – some of my scientists from Williams Contracting are going to be working here for awhile as well. Ugh, the insurance on that building is going to be a pain…"

"Oooh, donuts!" Dr. Andonuts had sighted a tray, and gravitated toward them like a moth to a flame. I headed out.

I walked briskly down the hall first to Weapons Center, at the northeast corner of the GDI building. This was where all the GDI soldiers' weaponry was produced and assigned. It was part factory and part sophisticated warehouse, where everything that was produced was categorized and stored according to an exact plan. I went to the front desk of the area, where GDI officers put in requests for weapon supplies, and made my request. "One XR-77.1 assault laser rifle, to go." It was our most up-to-date model, and was still available in only a limited supply. The secretary punched in the order to her computer and asked me to wait. About five minutes later, the weapon arrived, loaded with plasma and ready to go, complete with a box of ammo refill cartridges. One cartridge lasted approximately 3,000 shots; there were 144 cartridges. "Thank you kindly," I said, strapping the weapon over my shoulder and carrying the box as I headed back west toward the residence hall to find Laura.

Room 202? Or was it 204? I pondered, knowing only that she was in one of the two rooms across the hall from the one where Josh and I had spent the previous night. I decided to try 202; empty. Then I went to 204 and punched the buzzer. A moment later, Laura opened the door. "I told you I'd be here," I said. "I brought your laser rifle." I sat down the box and handed her the rifle, which was a little small by my standards but just right for hers. She took it cautiously, as if I was handing her a bomb. I smiled. "I know, it seems intimidating, and it is to whoever you're aiming it at – once you learn how to use it. So, let's go down to Training and you'll have it down like a pro in an hour."

"It looks… powerful," she said.

"Please don't shoot me with it, at least…" I said. "Right this way." I led the way to the Training Center 1, which took up much of the western half of the GDI building, and led her through a labyrinth of halls (she'd have to go through them maybe fifty times before she could navigate them on her own; at least, that's how long it took me) to the Laser Rifle Tactical Training Area.

"Alright," I said. "First, you'll need to learn the process of loading and readying the weapon. I'll do it for you in one quick motion, just to show you what it'll be like when you learn it. Of course, I don't expect you to be able to do it this fast immediately." Quickly, I took out the blank cartridge (on my rifle, which was an identical model to hers), opened the new one and activated it (with two buttons on the side), slid it in, activated the chamber, shut the chamber, activated the weapon, dropped to one knee and picked off three bulls-eye targets with small explosions.

I stood and held the rifle up triumphantly. "Hasta la vista, baby."

"I… didn't get any of that…" Laura said.

"Ha ha, I know," I said. "Now let's go through it step by step."

And so we did, although for the sake of my laziness and the sake of the fact that you the reader probably don't really care, I'll skip that part. Flashing forward to about 45 minutes later, Laura was handling her rifle like a pro, just as I'd promised. "Not that hard," I observed.

That evening at shortly before six, all of us that were at the meeting – myself, Craig, Josh, Bobby, Laura, Ness, Paula, Jeff, Dr. Andonuts, and Poo – met for dinner in the café, which, unlike the bedding, was up to the finest quality. We talked business briefly while we were waiting for our food to arrive.

"You two will leave early tomorrow morning," said Craig. "Go to Dalaam first and talk to Poo's master, and find out anything he knows about the Apple."

"That was my plan as well," I said.

"That's just 'cuz you're lazy, though," said Josh. "Much easier to strut into the palace than to try and find your way through that God-forsaken monkey cave."

"But of course," I said.

"Ooooo, food's here guys!" Josh nearly shouted. "Gimme gimme gimme!" Josh sat and awaited the delivery of the food (I'm sure it took an eternity for him – poor Josh), and just as it arrived, a chain of loud explosions rocked the café, sending us all to the ground for cover.

"Whoa!" shouted Craig. "We're under attack!"

"Either that or they screwed up something down at Q Branch again," said Josh, bounding to his feet. Then a second series of explosions hit, and a third, louder, soon after that.

"Alright guys, looks like combat!" Craig shouted, hurrying out the door, followed by the rest of us.

"Ness!" I shouted, turning. "This is military combat – you and your friends need to head for shelter immediately!"

"Can't we help?" said Poo.

"No, go find shelter now!" I said. "They're after you, don't you see that?"

On the way to Battle Command Center, we met up with some dispatch troops coming from the Center looking for us. "Commander Casner!" shouted Marshal James Manolo, field commander of the defense corps "We're under attack – Giygas is striking from the air!"

"Has he invaded Summers or Toto?" Craig asked.

"No, sir," Manolo replied. "He's striking at GDI headquarters only – he's trying to land infantry outside the perimeters of the base." Now we regularly had to shout over the sound of explosions.

"How are our defenses holding up?"

"Defenses are A-OK, sir. Not a man is breaking through – the antiaircraft defenses are deadlocked."

"We're gonna need to go into combat," I said. "I'll take to the unfriendly skies. General Wilson, you care to meet them on the ground?"

"It'd be my pleasure to crack some alien heads," Josh replied as he slid on his combat helmet.

"Bobby's already out there," said Craig. "I'll engineer antiaircraft defense from here. Laura, do you want to head for shelter? Or do you want to remain here?"

"Can I stay here?" she replied. "I don't want to stay alone in the shelter…"

"You won't be alone," replied Craig. "Ness and company are down there. But if you want to remain here, you may. Perhaps you can learn a thing or two about our antiaircraft defenses."

"Alright," said Laura, "I'll stay here, then."

Craig took his seat, offered the one next to him to Laura, and then turned and nodded to Josh and I. "Good luck, guys." We took our leave; Josh streaked over to retrieve a few infantry units to lead into battle against the Starman armies, and I made for the airstrip to load into my gyrocopter.

I took off from the airstrip in my gyro and flipped on the GDI combat radio, and flew directly into the air combat zone above GDI headquarters, where GDI forces were locked in a dogfight with Giygas's legions of Lil' UFO's and not-so-lil' UFO's. As I dodged my way through the fire, I grabbed my radio and flipped a switch. "Marshal Eastford!" I called into the radio.

"Eastford, reporting!" came the quick reply.

"General Williams here. How are our forces doing?"

"We're losing the dogfight, General," Eastford replied. "But our antiaircraft defenses are holding the base. They aren't breaking through. We're awaiting orders on how to drive them out."

"Get me a battle map ASAP," I called. "Williams out!" I put down the communicator and flipped on my computer, and turned on the battle map, while all the while dodging and firing at enemy ships. I swooped in low and caught a few Lil' UFO's in my rotors, and picked off some big UFO's with the laser cannons, before the battle map finally came up. I flew to the nearest air shelter post, in the northwest corner of the facility, and landed and studied the map. I punched in SEND COMMCASNER BATMAP enter and then my password, and the map was forwarded to Commander Casner's computer screen. I grabbed my communicator and flipped it on again. "Commander Casner! Do you copy?"

"Casner here, I copy. I have a battle map coming from you, I've noticed. How's the fight doing?"

"Deadlocked," I said. "We're gonna need a strategy for driving them out of here. So go to it, Mr. Tactician."

"Okay, give me a minute to study this thing," said Craig, who then flipped the button to put me on speaker. He and Laura studied the map of the air combat zone for a moment. "You see anything special about this combat zone, Laura?" Craig said.

She looked. "It's just a bunch of colors…"

"Blue is us, red is them, it's pretty easy, and the ships are classified by shape," he said, pointing to the screen. "You'll catch on fast. But notice how, and you listen too, Carl, notice how they have most of their heavy artillery stacked up in formation on the east flank. We need to disrupt that, that's what's dealing most of our casualties."

"Can the AA (antiaircraft) cannons take some shots?" I asked.

"They already are," said Craig. "They aren't being very effective. And a frontal offensive would be suicidal."

"Is there any way we can sneak behind them?" offered Laura.

"Doesn't look like it," I said. "Their formation is pretty strong. Whoa, we have an attack on the southwest zone!"

Craig started. "What? Oh boy… they're gonna bust through there. We're outgunned!" He quickly threw another switch on his control panel and cried into the communicator, "Commander Casner here! Get out, now! Evacuate the southwest safety zone immediately!" Then he turned to Laura. "This'll be good training here. We're gonna bombard that zone with our antiaircraft cannons."

"How?" asked Laura. "How do we control all the cannons from here?"

"Heheh," Craig chuckled, "we don't directly control them from here. We issue orders, and the AA technicians fire the cannons." He flipped another switch. "Casner here. I have a training general with me, when she gives orders, obey them. Casner out." He flipped the switch off. He proceeded to explain briefly to Laura how to work the control panel to direct AA attacks, which I won't repeat since it's both boring and classified.

"Right, we've evacuated southwest," I said. "Now we only have three zones left, we gotta break their artillery lines."

"Well, as Laura was saying, the only way to do that is to get around them. Only one way to do it. We're gonna perform a feigned withdrawal." Casner had just played his favorite trump card, his feigned withdrawal battle technique, designed to make the enemy lines open up to give chase or capture, then turn around and attack a hopefully exposed flank. It seemed pretty risky on the surface, but Craig knew how to make it work.

"Alright, feigned withdrawal it is," I said. "I'll get it arranged." I threw a switch on my communicator. "All aircraft listen! We're performing a feigned withdrawal! Repeat, perform a feigned withdrawal to the west immediately!"

Craig leaned back in his chair. "Well, now we're going to retreat and abandon the headquarters, or so Giygas is going to think," he said. "But we're gonna surprise them and break up that line of artillery of theirs."

I fired up my gyro and took off, and led the supposed retreat from the GDI headquarters. Our ships all turned their tails and took off; the Giygas forces seemed just a bit confused by our maneuver, but nonetheless began to give chase. "Swing north!" I cried into my communicator, trying to draw their forces far enough north that we could attack from the south.

"There it is!" Craig called after a few straining minutes. "The artillery line's forming a circle and trying to surround the complex. We'll break it if we fire a concentrated AA attack at 'em, and then you guys can smash through and break them all up – they'll be too surprised to react effectively."

"Casner!" Josh called over the communicator. "Giygan forces have broken through the east entrance! They're coming your way!"

"Our way!" Craig said. He threw a switch. "Hokela!"

"Reporting," came the reply. "We're holding the west. They seem to be regrouping."

"They've broken through the east! I need assassins in here to clean 'em out, right away!"

"I'm coming to your position. Hokela out."

Craig turned. "You gotta get out of here and to the shelter right now!" he said to Laura. "If they make it here, you're toast!"

"Are we gonna be okay!" Laura said, worried.

"Yes, we're going to drive them out, don't worry about that," said Craig. "But you're in danger of being taken prisoner. I'm sending for an escort to get you to our battle shelter immediately," he said, pointing to a flashing red button he had hit a minute before. "General Wilson!" he said, grabbing his communicator. "Hold the outside, I have Hokela coming inside!"

"Affirmative," Josh replied. "No one else is breakin' through here, big man!"

A minute later, a group of five troops, Laura's escort, arrived at Command Center. "Get her outta here, now!" Craig said to them. "To the battle shel—OOF!" Craig was suddenly floored by laser fire. A large group of Starmen had broken into the room through the east entrance to it, opposite of the escort which had arrived from the west. "They're here!" Craig shouted as he got up and drew his sword.

"So are we!" Bobby Hokela called as his Assassins flowed in through the west entrance. They engaged the Starmen harshly and immediately, and Craig hesitated nary a moment to join the fray.

"Get her outta here, now!" Craig called. Laura, who had just frozen a Starman with her PSI, was taken away by the soldiers and led to the battle shelter. Casner, Hokela and the assassins, who were considerably outnumbered, fought fiercely against the Starmen that had broken through the back lines of the GDI ground defenses. Craig slashed at a Starman, dodged a laser, jumped and destroyed another Starman, but failed to pick up quickly enough on the three Starmen that had gotten behind him.

"Craig! Behind you!" Hokela called as he came running.

But too late.

Craig was down.

And the Starmen were taking off with him…

**Chapter 5 – The Giant, the Psychic and the Assassin**

"Where are they! WHERE THE WHITE HELL ARE THEY!" Josh screamed.

"Fiveville, or in orbit, presumably," said Hokela. "The whole mission's intent seemed to have been to capture Craig."

"We thought we had them fooled, but they had us…" I said.

"Well, we gotta go find him, NOW!" shouted Josh. "They'll kill him!"

"I doubt it," I said. "Never underestimate how stupid evil can be. They don't want to kill him, they want to keep him alive as a trump card preventing us from attacking him. A hostage. A 'if you come close, he dies' kind of deal. If they had wanted to kill him, they would have done so without bothering to make the capture."

"If that is the case, he'll die," said Bobby. "We can't choose him over the world."

I sighed through a moment of general silence. "Yes, in the end I'm afraid you're right," I said. "What we have to consider now is how we go about looking for him."

"We need to say screw the mission and attack Fiveville right now!" growled Josh. "I'm going whether you guys go or not, but I might suggest that we send the Chosen Four in with a military escort."

"You're gonna stay right here until I give the order to dispatch you, Josh," I said. "Now don't go getting yourself in big AWOL trouble because you can't control yourself." Josh didn't say it, of course, but he felt tremendous guilt; he blamed himself for Craig's being captured, thinking that if only he'd done this or that differently he could have prevented them from breaking through at all. That was untrue, as Josh was the finest at ground security, but when you lose a close friend and you were close to the situation, such guilt is natural. I was feeling the same frustration he was, but now being in forward command of the GDI, I did my best to keep at bay the urge to charge headlong into a stupid and costly fight.

Ness, Paula, Jeff, Poo, Laura, Josh, Bobby and I were back in the main meeting room where we had met before. It was about two hours after Giygas's troops had captured Commander Casner and immediately left the GDI headquarters. Following Craig's laid-out procedure, I was in forward command of the GDI until his return. We were meeting to determine just how and when to go about attempting to rescue him… if he was still alive.

"Are you sure they won't kill him?" asked Laura.

"They'll probably do one of two things. Either they'll hold him hostage as protection against GDI attack, as we said, or they'll be delivering some form of ransom message inviting us to try and rescue him, intended to draw us in so they can attempt to kill us – 'us' being those of us sitting here right now."

"So what are we supposed to do right now?" asked Ness.

"You're supposed to go knock off Giygas and get Craig back," said Josh. "But how, is what Sir Carl so earnestly wants to know."

"I agree with Josh," said Bobby. "We should try to recover Craig ASAP. There's no sense in waiting for a ransom message."

"Alright, here's what we'll do," I said. "We'll wait one day, two nights, until noon, for something to happen. If nothing does, we'll go on in after him. But not just after him – we should try to knock Giygas out before he gets too strong a foothold. So here's what we do. We'll break into two parties. The Chosen Four will be one, and the other four of us will be the other. We'll invade from opposite ends of Giygas's headquarters in Fiveville. Ness and company's mission is to defeat Giygas, and our mission is to rescue Craig. We'll stay in communication as much as we can. But you guys realize how risky this is… I can't say I expect all of us, if any of us, to survive."

"We got our lives for free, let's go," said Josh.

I looked around the table, and saw nothing but faces determined to make the mission, with the possible exception of Laura, who showed her usual uncertainty and apprehension, but she knew that what we proposed to do was preferable to sitting around and waiting for them to attack us. She knew she might be next.

"Alright, it's done then. General Wilson, you're in charge of keeping this building as well defended as you can. General Hokela, you're in charge of espionage and trying to find out what they intend to do. Laura and I are going to work on strategy and communication… Ness, you and your friends are free to do as you please, just don't wander outside the complex, and here," I slid a communicator, the same model used by the GDI generals and now by Laura as well, across the table to him. "Keep this on. If someone calls for you and your friends, report immediately – your lives could depend on it, and so could the fate of the world. This meeting is over."

"Well, I gotta go keep this place good n' protected from alien scum," said Josh, as he rose and left. Ness and his friends filed out next, leaving Laura, Bobby and myself.

"We're like another version of the Chosen Four, aren't we?" Laura mused. "I mean, three boys and a girl who defeat Giygas. We might do it too…"

"Well, I intend for us to be three boys and a girl who find Craig and bring him back alive, then we can worry about defeating Giygas." I said.

"Giygas first," said Bobby. "Craig second."

I sighed. "I'm not so sure I'd be able to do that, if I had to choose," I said.

"How can you say something like that?" Laura said, almost spat, at Bobby. "Don't you care about him?"

"I care more about the rest of the world," said Bobby in his unflinching tone. "Given the choice, you choose the world over one life."

Laura stared at him for a moment. "If you could choose between killing Giygas and saving Craig, you'd kill Giygas and let Craig die?"

"Yes. There is no choice."

"How could you?" It was easy to see that Laura didn't understand Bobby's point of view, and that Bobby had little interest in explaining it.

"Alright, Bobby, you should go now," I said, figuring I should try to explain Bobby's point of view. He rose and left without a word, leaving the two of us. "Bobby isn't as inhuman as he seems. The truth is, he'd hesitate too if given that choice. Anyone would."

"He's so… so cold!" Laura said. "I don't know how he can be that way…"

"He has a complicated past. He's pretty much killed all trace of emotion he has. It wouldn't work for you or me, but it works for him."

"Do you think Craig's alive?" Laura asked me.

I paused for a moment. "Yes, I think he is… I don't think Giygas would outright kill him. But of course… Giygas's interest is in taking over the world, so he might just kill him right away. But my gut feeling is that Craig is still alive."

"Me too…" she said.

"We'll have to wait and see," I said. "But we'll have to go and look for ourselves if Giygas doesn't tell us soon. Which, personally, I think he will."

"I hope so… I'm worried."

"Sitting around and worrying won't help. Try to get some rest, we have some work to do. I know it's been a really traumatic past few days for you."

She sat and stared down at the table, noticeably blinking back tears. I wanted to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder as I rose to leave, but I didn't; it didn't seem proper to me, nor did it seem like it would be of much help. So I left.


	2. Chapters 6 to 12

**Chapter 6 – The Delivery**

One full day had passed since the meeting, and there had been not a single peep from the Giygas camp in Fiveville. Josh was getting more and more antsy to charge into battle. Bobby's work turned up nothing in the way of messages or attack convoys. Laura, who seemed to be dealing reasonably well with all the stress, worked with me on some military paperwork-type things, as I showed her the ropes of GDI leadership, as it seemed that was Craig's intention for her. The thought occurred to me more than once that while I could fill in perfectly well as GDI commander, I wasn't sure if I was cracked up to fulfill the duties of being full-time commander. To be sure, it would be infeasible to run the whole of the GDI and still be able to operate Williams Contracting, which would mean that I'd need to find new leadership for the firm, possibly in the form of Dr. Andonuts, although it seemed evident to me that his managerial and organizational skills may have been just a bit lacking.

Laura and I were working on some organizational files for the GDI's frontline infantry units when the communicator crackled to life. I looked up. "Bobby here. We've intercepted an envoy from Giygas flying the white flag. It says it has something for you and wants to deliver it."

"Isn't that dangerous..?" asked Laura. "I mean, he could be lying. What if it was a bomb, or something?"

I nodded. "Bobby, are you sure that this little present doesn't carry the side effect of sudden death?"

"The ship checks out, there are no lasers and nothing explosive on it, but the pilot won't let us inside."

"I doubt one ship could do a lot of damage… it must be legitimate. But still, I don't want to take chances."

"It won't do any damage," said Bobby. "I'm going to let it through."

Laura and I went to the window (tinted glass, of course) through which we could see the whole of the exterior of the GDI complex. We sighted a single Giygan UFO that was sailing lightly, almost methodically, over the center of the complex. Suddenly, it dropped something. My eyes widened, as I thought it was a bomb, but suddenly, Laura let loose with a blood-curdling scream and drove herself into my shoulder.

"What? What is it?" I started.

Laura tried to reply, but what she tried to say was buried in sobs. As I got a closer look, I realized what it was that the UFO, which had taken off, had dropped. "Oh, my God…" I grabbed Laura by the shoulders. "Laura, you stay here! I'm going down there!" I turned and sprinted for the elevator, but when I was about to close the door I realized that Laura was following. "Are you sure you want to go down there?" I asked her, my finger on the button.

"Yes…" she said, trying to control herself. I punched the DOWN button and we sailed down; when the elevator smoothed to a stop, the door slid open and we dashed out of it out onto the AA firing pad, where we found Craig's limp, lifeless body, cold as stone, lying there. Josh and Bobby were already there.

"Those mother…" Josh proceeded with an abundance of screaming of creative words.

"Oh my God, I can't believe it…" Laura kept saying softly, staring sometimes at Craig, more often with her eyes closed.

Bobby kneeled down and took off his right glove, and gently felt Craig's neck, his chest, his arm. "He's dead," he said. "He's been dead for a few hours, no more." He replaced his glove and stood, and stared up into the sky, as if intently looking for something.

My train of thought began to whirl around in figure-8's; I completely lost my capacity for clear thought Tears were welling up in my eyes, and I felt like breaking into sobs myself, but I refrained, if only for Laura's sake. Josh got up, marched to the steel door, grabbed hold of it and tore it from its hinges with a mighty scream, and threw it forcefully down off the firing pad. It crashed to the ground 100 feet below, and Josh marched through the open doorway in uncontrollable rage, where he would almost certainly leave a path of destruction behind him throughout the complex. I grabbed my communicator and flipped it on. "Someone follow General Wilson and clean up after him…" I said, my voice noticeably drained of emotion, which was the same way my brain felt right about then.

Sniffing, I stared up into the same sky into which Bobby was gazing. "You will pay, Giygas… you will pay."

Bobby took Craig's body into the complex, and I ordered up a coffin as Bobby took it to have it prepared for burial. But early the next morning, when I awakened after a sleepless, nightmare-haunted night, Bobby was waiting for me outside my room.

"You didn't sleep well, I see," Bobby said.

"No, that I didn't." I looked and felt like a ghost.

"I have good and bad news," said Bobby. "Craig may not be dead."

My eyes shot open, and then narrowed. "Wha..? What do you mean!"

"His body which we recovered yesterday is, technically, dead. But it warmed up… there's no heartbeat and no breathing. But it got warm. Does that sound like anything to you?"

I slowly tried to think, but nothing happened. I still couldn't think very clearly, and now weariness was weighing in. "No, not really…"

"It sounds like suspended animation to me," Bobby said. "It sounds like the condition in which Ness and his friends' bodies were when their spirits went into the past as robots." (When Ness and company defeated Giygas the first time, they had to travel into the past to do so. But life was demolished in the process of warping, so their spirits, or consciousnesses if you will, were transferred into robots for the task, their bodies being left behind.)

My eyes widened again. He was right… "Oh my… you're right. It must be..!" I had to make some phone calls; I needed to call a meeting that included Williams Contracting's top medicinal scientists. We had to try to confirm this.

Four hours later, I sat in the meeting room with five of my best doctors, who had completed their testing of Craig's body. Dr. Andonuts was giving the report of their findings. "The heart is not beating," said the doctor. "But Mr. Hokela is correct in that the body's condition is exactly like that of the bodies of Ness and his friends when their spirits were transfused into robots and sent to the past. It must therefore be our conclusion that Giygas has somehow perfected the method of removing the spirit from the body and has done so to Commander Casner. Commander Casner is alive, somewhere."

"Like, where!" shouted Josh, who also hadn't slept and now sat in a constant state of one half-step from destructive violence. "Sitting in a bottle on a bookshelf somewhere? In a robot?"

"We don't know," said another scientist. "In a bottle would be a relatively good guess, I suppose."

"Thank you," I said, motioning to the door. "You're excused from this meeting. I'll call if we need anything else." Dr. Andonuts and his entourage took their leave, leaving the usual eight people in the room.

"Well?" Josh said to me, raising his eyebrows. "We going after him, or not?"

I paused before speaking. "There are two possibilities here," I said. "The first is that they dropped the body here in order to fool us into thinking he was dead, and then burying the body prematurely, which would kill him, and then becoming enraged and going after him. The second is that that body is Giygas's ransom message, a kind of 'come and get it if you want it' message. So we need to determine which theory we choose to believe. I lean towards the second."

"I kinda think Giygas is holding him somewhere, waiting for us to come after him," said Ness.

"Or perhaps he's going to try to brainwash him..?" pondered Poo.

"Who cares!" Josh shouted. "I don't much care about your theories and your suppositions, I just want Giygas to pay, and I want Craig the hell back!"

"So do I," said Laura. "What's it matter, really? I mean, we have to at least try to get him back, don't we?"

"Yes, I'd say we have to, and soon," said Jeff.

"Alright, here's what we do then," I said. "It's been two days since our last meeting, and besides that, we have the message we were waiting for. So we – 'we' being us sitting in this room – will go in after Commander Casner. It's the same as we talked about earlier – the two objects of the game are to recover Commander Casner and to defeat Giygas."

"Defeat Giygas and recover Commander Casner if possible, you mean," corrected Bobby. He spoke so rarely that the sound of his voice was startling.

"Whatever you want to call it, Bobby," I said.

"So we're going to split up into two groups?" asked Paula.

"It makes the most sense," said Poo.

"Yeah, we shouldn't keep all our eggs in one basket here," I said. "If one group is captured, the other will have to attempt rescue, but smaller groups than four are too dangerous."

"How are we going to set this up?" asked Laura. "Are we going to use the GDI as a distraction, like we talked about?"

"I think all things considered, that's the best thing to do," I replied. "Our first priority is gaining entrance, and if the battle goes poorly, I'll have the GDI forces retreat as soon as we make it in. I really don't want a lot of casualties out there." Josh was tapping his fingers impatiently.

"When are we going to go?" asked Jeff.

"We aren't going to delay, now that we've committed," I said. "We go tomorrow morning."

"I'll drink to that," said Josh.

"Good idea," I said. "Maybe it'll mellow you out a bit if you go have a few gallons of Draino."

"Mmm… another transmission fluid here!" He wasn't enjoying himself like he usually would, though. He was in a state of deep but generally – thankfully – controlled rage.

Paula had her eyes closed. "Our enemy is far greater than we expect…" she said softly, as if to herself. "We can't underestimate him… we won't expect him when he attacks…"

Josh raised an eyebrow. "Is she gettin' psychic again?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, looks that way. You okay, Paula?"

Paula blinked. "Yes, I'm alright now. It's just… I sense a far greater evil than even when we fought Giygas the last time… I'm scared."

"I'm scared too," said Laura, "but we have to go. We can't just leave him there!"

"We can," said Bobby.

"Right, let's clarify this," I said, distracting myself from entertaining Bobby's point. "Group one will be Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo. Ness is in command of that unit. Group two will have myself in command and will consist of myself, Josh, Bobby and Laura. Ness's group is assigned to locate and defeat Giygas; my group is assigned to locate and rescue Commander Casner."

"That's my kind of mission," said Josh.

"Perhaps they should receive some form of stealth training," said Bobby. "They could use it."

"Ah, I hear you volunteering yourself!" I said.

"If you like."

"Very well then, I agree with you. You can work with them this afternoon. But let's get in bed early tonight, guys, we'll need to be up by 5 AM or so. I want to launch the attack at 7:30 AM sharp."

I forced myself to stay awake most of the day so that I would get a good night's sleep; the nightmares that had haunted me the previous night were vanquished by the hope that, somewhere, Craig was still alive and awaiting us to deliver him from Giygas. I passed the time by explaining further to Laura the intricacies of operating the GDI, and by joining Bobby as he spent the day giving Ness and his friends a crash course in stealth. At 6 PM I could stay awake no longer, and I turned in for the night. I fell asleep almost instantly as I lay down in my bed, and stayed in an unusually deep sleep until the alarm came at 5.

Bobby strode outside onto the high platform atop one of the towers. There was a stiff wind blowing toward him, the sky was a deep gray, and the lightest of rain was sprinkling, the sort of rain that you could not feel hitting you but that soaked you through if you stayed out in it long enough.

Josh was standing at the edge of the platform, peering out over the city of Summers and to the storm-tossed sea, standing against the chilling wind which blew his uniform powerfully backwards but did not budge his body.

"The black wind blows…" Josh turned his head at Bobby's words; no one ever heard Bobby coming.

Josh turned back to the sea and waited awhile before he spoke. "I wanna know where the hell Craig is."

"We'll find him," said Bobby, standing beside Josh now on the platform, "but what toll must be taken?"

"It doesn't matter," said Josh, with his usual conviction but without the stubbornness he had exhibited earlier in the day. "If I'm the toll, I'm gonna pay it."

"As will I," said Bobby. "But if we're both the toll, is it worth paying?"

"That doesn't matter either," said Josh. "This isn't just a mission to rescue our commander, it's a mission to rescue my friend… of course, I wouldn't expect you to know or care what friendship is."

"I know far better than I'd like to," said Bobby. "But I do not care. I will lay down my life, but it isn't worth the both of us."

Josh shook his head. "I don't care either, Bobby. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get him back – and to make Giygas pay dearly for it."

"A vengeful mind is one of our greatest downfalls," said Bobby. "It clouds the judgment. If you die rescuing him or if we don't rescue him at all – I lose a friend either way. So do you."

Josh sighed. "You're right, I can't go to it with revenge on my mind. But still – still, it's hard not to, after what he's done. Not just to Craig, but bloody hell, he's already killed how many hundreds of innocent people? And besides, the whole point of the GDI is to kill Giygas."

"Yes, that's the mission. Keep the mission in mind, not your personal vendettas. You'll succeed."

Josh smiled. "We live by the sword…"

"We'll die by the sword," said Bobby. "Only a matter of time."

"Ha!" said Josh. "Me? Die by the sword? Don't you know I'm the greatest!"

Bobby stared out into the bleakness. "You are not the greatest. Still, it's easier to think you are."

Josh turned his head for the first time that night to look at Bobby. The small pellets of rain were collecting and dripping off his shades; Bobby did not return Josh's glance. "We'll get it done," he said with a half-smile. "Maybe I'm not the greatest – but _we_ are the greatest, are we not?"

"Yes," replied Bobby. "The mission will succeed."

Josh stepped down from the platform and went inside. Bobby remained outside, silent and still as a statue, gazing into the clouds. No one will ever know what he was thinking about; I would hazard a guess that it was not the next day's battle, although that would be the first thing he'd tell you, if he told you anything.

**Chapter 7 – Preparation**

Josh glanced at his watch as he strode down the hall and knocked on Laura's door. 7:38 PM; he wouldn't be in bed until probably midnight, he knew, but he didn't know when Laura intended to turn in. "Hello?" he heard her voice uncertainly call from the inside.

"General Joshua Wilson in forward command MA'AM!" Josh shouted rapidly, raising his voice to an extremely high level for the last word. He was in better spirits than he had been earlier.

The door slowly opened. "Hi," Laura said with a smile. "I was just getting ready for bed, do you need me for something?"

"Thought you'd like to go out for a night on the town," said Josh. He chuckled and said, "No, really, I need to show you some stuff you'll need to know tomorrow. Can you roll on down to training central with me for awhile?"

"Alright, sure," said Laura. "Just lead the way." Josh gladly did so, leading her to the training center and showing her to a room.

A few assorted items lay on a table in the corner. The room was as big as a football field and had various items intended for use as targets strewn around it. Josh picked up a belt with a mechanism on the front of it that had the size and shape of a small football, although it was more flat. "This," he said, showing it to Laura, "is your shield belt. It's at 100 percent right now; get shot and it'll drop a lot, it only takes a few shots before it goes to zero. Once it's at zero, it's off and you're fair game. It recharges slowly, probably takes about a few hours to recover what you'd lose from taking one shot. So to make a long story short, don't get shot."

"Oh yeah, that sounds simple," said Laura, being funny. "No problem."

"Good," said Josh, smiling. "I like people who realize how easy it is to not get shot. These here," he picked up a small box and picked up from it an object the size and shape of a ping pong ball, "are heavy-duty grenades, packed in a small package. Two buttons on it," he said, rotating it for her to see. "The red button sets it to detonate on contact with something; the blue button gives it a four-second fuse." He turned and hit a button on the control panel behind him mounted on the wall; thirty yards away, some tread-mounted targets began to move quickly back and forth.

"So, depending on the situation, you can do it either way. You can hit targets from a distance with the auto-detonator like so." He pressed the red button, took aim, and threw the ball-grenade at a moving target; it struck the ground two feet short of the target and exploded, making a terrible noise and sending a small shock wave through the room that shook Josh and Laura. Josh, who was used to the sound of explosions, stood fast and unamused, but Laura shrieked at the great sound of the explosion and instinctively dove toward Josh, intending to bury her face in his upper arm but instead getting his lower arm due to his great height.

Once the sound and the smoke had dissipated, Laura stepped away from Josh, a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry… I just didn't…" she started.

Josh smiled. "I forgot to warn you, forgot you weren't too used to it," he said. "But you might as well get used to it now, you're gonna hear a lot of it tomorrow."

"Okay…" said Laura, who was visibly trying to slow down her heartbeat.

"Anyway, let's get on with the demonstration," said Josh. "Try not to bail when this one goes off," he said with a light laugh. "Remember, you got four seconds to get away or chuck it after you hit the blue button." He trotted out to where another target was, about forty yards away, hit the button, tossed it on the floor a little bit to the left of where an oncoming target was at, and sprinted back toward Laura, diving theatrically to the ground in front of her just as the grenade exploded. Laura flinched but didn't cry out or dive anywhere; Josh got up and dusted himself off, looking back at the wreckage behind them. "So as you can see, they pack a punch," he said.

"Now," said Josh, picking up a high-tech-looking handgun, "this is your very own Tazer Girl. Usually it's called Tazer Boy, but we figured we'd change it in your case. You see, lasers work just fine when it comes to wiping out human troops," he said, "but since most of Giygas's army is made up of robots and machinery, electricity is definitely the way to go. Now this puppy'll fire a reeeeal high amperage pulse for almost a mile, think of it as a lightning gun, 'cause that's pretty much what it is." He took aim and fired it at a target; it didn't create much noise nor could its shot be seen, but burned a big hole through it. "This really messes up robots, can make 'em explode, plus electricity is dangerous, so don't use this from anywhere close to close range. Plus, if you mess around with it you'll get zapped something nasty. Just like so," he said, reaching for the catch on the back of the weapon. For some reason, Josh rather enjoyed being zapped with electricity, so he didn't mind demonstrating what happened to Laura. He pressed the catch backwards and immediately the sound of live electricity went into the air and his body jerked and was thrown to the ground, the live gun crackling on the ground next to him before dying.

"Josh!" Laura cried. "Are you all right!"

Josh opened his eyes wide. "Wooooooooo! Nothin like a good zap to wake you up in the mornin'!" He shook his head vigorously and rose to his feet, shaking his left arm. "Man, I'm still buzzing… so much for me sleeping tonight. So anyway, if it did that to me, imagine what it'd do to little ol' you. So, don't touch anything but the trigger or else ZAP!" He tossed the weapon back onto the table. "Well, that just about concludes weapons 101 for tonight, now it's time to hit the sack. Do you got everything down pat now?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Laura after catching her breath from the last scare. "Thank you for showing me this…"

"No problem," said Josh. "It's also a great way to get you used to being surprised. Well, let's go back to our rooms now and get some snoozy-snoozy."

The alarm went off at 5:00 sharp. I always had little difficulty going to sleep and waking up, regardless of how tired I was, unlike Craig, who had to set his alarm for 4 if he wanted to drag himself out of bed by 5. I strapped on my operative uniform – mostly black, complete with gloves and boots and including all the weaponry that Josh had shown Laura, standard laser rifle on the back half of my right hip, Tazer Boy on the front, sword strapped to my back. When I had completed this, I went to the breakfast hall, where I'd set up an appointment with the rest of my team and with the people who would be operating the GDI in my absence.

Josh and Bobby were already there when I arrived, in full uniform as well. Josh's uniform was the same as mine, only a whole lot bigger (I could fit myself into one of his pantlegs). Laura's, I knew since I'd ordered it, was similar, only a shade of dark blue instead of black, and smaller of course. Bobby was in his standard combat clothing; all black, tied with a samurai-like waistband, with all the standard weaponry – similar to us from the neck down, except that he was completely solid, deep black, whereas we had shades of a more dark gray in places. His shades had been replaced by a black mask that covered his entire head, with special material over the eyes that he could see out of but no one could see into. He was truly a frightening sight in combat uniform.

"Bout time you made it here, big man!" Josh called as I took my seat across from him. "I already ordered your breakfast, hope you like bagels."

"I only eat them every day," I said.

"Heheheh, not onion ones!"

"If you ordered me onion bagels you die," I said.

"I like to live dangerously, as someone I know says," Josh replied. "So might as well die dangerously too, eh?"

"Play with fire and you get burned…" I responded. We had both just quoted things Craig liked to say.

Josh looked up and I turned; Laura was approaching. She seemed to have had little trouble with her uniform and looked pretty sharp in it now; she took a seat next to me, across from Bobby. "Good morning!" she said as cheerfully as she could muster through her obvious nervousness. Of course I was nervous too, although I also tried my best not to show it; unlike Laura, I had been on such operations before. I doubt Josh was very nervous and I know Bobby wasn't.

"What's so good about it…" Josh muttered between bites of a biscuit. "It's still rainin' out there, hard."

"Good," I said. "That provides the best cover for us to attack with."

"But it gets me wet, and I hate it," said Josh. "The weather should be whatever I darn well want it to be." Laura laughed a little; I just shook my head and smiled.

Breakfast arrived, and we partook of it, having an irrelevant little friendly conversation in the meantime. By 5:30, we were done with it. I glanced at my watch just as the company we had been awaiting arrived; two high-ranking GDI officers who would be entrusted with the invasion and with operating the GDI while we were gone.

"Bout time you fools made it," said Josh as they took their seats. "You'll be late to your own funerals probably."

"We'll be too busy listening to your rambling," said General Leslie O'Connor. She was a beautiful but fiercely independent woman of 28 years, a military genius and a battle-hardened soldier from the first war against Giygas. She was a personal favorite of Josh's (not surprising since the two of them did tend to be similar in their personalities and therefore pretended to be constantly fighting when they really weren't), but the thought of Josh ever actually dating, much less being at all serious with or marrying, someone was simply laughable. The both of them were so independent that they wouldn't survive together. The thing about Josh was that, where Leslie was attractive, Josh was simply a monster; you can say what you like about girls liking big muscles but Josh was just TOO big. Leslie had deep brown eyes that, if she wished, could burn through you like laser beams. Despite the generally intimidating nature of her complexion, she was actually bright and friendly most of the time.

"Invasion at 7:30, correct?" said General James Manolo. He would be the field leader of the assault we were to launch while General O'Connor handled things back home. Manolo was 36 years old and the oldest ranking officer in the GDI; his eyes revealed a simple intelligence similar to Craig's but somehow different. He was 5'11" and muscular, with light brown hair that he kept cut short. He had served in the Eagleland military and had joined up with the GDI shortly after the original meteorite incident in Onett that had begun the first war against Giygas. "I wouldn't want us to be late."

"We won't be late, James," said O'Connor. "I have all our units organized and ready to fly the second I drop a pin, so calm down."

"You've known me for how long, Leslie?" Manolo responded. "Have you ever known me to not be calm?"

"True," O'Connor assented. "I'd love to get hold of whatever tranquilizers you take every morning." Manolo, ever self-possessed, smiled bemusedly to himself. He was, in fact, a very even-tempered man, a rock who could be trusted and looked to in the heat of the fiercest battle, and beyond that he was incredibly capable on the battlefield and the best swordsman I had ever seen.

"Are Ness and company getting prepared?" asked Josh.

"Their stealth training is as complete as can be expected," said Bobby. "Given their powers, I expect they'll do fine if they can avoid large groups."

"The whole point to the invasion is to keep large groups away from us," I said.

"So when do I retreat?" asked Manolo.

"Ness will let you know when his group is in, and I'll let you know when mine is," I replied. "And you know to have rescue craft ready in case something goes wrong. After we're both in, it's your call when to bail."

"I like that idea," said Leslie. "I just want to minimize our casualties…"

"With any luck, most of our casualties will be machine instead of human," I said. "The front lines are made up of robots in any case… we're not fighting this battle to win. That battle will come on another day."

A sharp, shrill beep from my communicator interrupted. "Williams here."

"We're ready to go…" said Ness on the other end. "When are we going?"

"In less than an hour, since it's a 40 minute journey to get there. Your team's going to sneak in the back door, and we're going to attack from above."

"Above?" said Laura. "Like, how far above?"

"Heights," said Josh, trying not to laugh. The man was always smiling, always found something to laugh about in pretty much any situation, except for when he got angry.

I glanced up at Laura. "It'll only be about a ten foot jump from a moving helicopter. You'll manage. Or else I'll let you ride piggyback with Josh again." Laura didn't say anything more, but the fear was there in her eyes. Everyone… well, everyone but Josh and Bobby, anyway, seems to have one great fear. For Laura it was heights. "OK Ness, it's time to get loaded up and ready to roll. Meet us at the shuttlecraft bay. Do you know where that is?" He answered in the affirmative, and I flipped off the communicator.

I looked up to my three companions. "It's time to head out," I said. "We need to work with Leslie and James a little before we leave, work out the fine points. Let's go to the bay."

We rose and left the café and made our way outside to the shuttlecraft bay, situated atop a tower on the south end of the GDI building. It was a large area, at least a few football fields long and wide, and consisted mainly of hangars, few runways since all GDI shuttlecraft were helicopters. We walked the length of it – it was an extremely noisy area at this time of morning, bustling with even more activity than usual since this particular morning marked the first attack the GDI had launched in nearly two years. One had to shout in order to be heard, even by people close by. We made our way through the activity to the far end of the bay, which, like the lookout tower Josh and Bobby had ascended the previous night, provided a spectacular view of the city of Summers and of the ocean, which was tossing and turning in the storm; we were already wet from a driving rain, made worse by the gusty wind. It had been raining all night: most of the beach had been claimed by the swelling ocean, and water ran like streams through the streets. I looked up at the sky: it was a dark gray, a churning mass of a violent storm that seemed to have no end. "It's going to keep raining most of today, probably," I observed in a loud voice.

"Who cares," said Josh, who as usual was just kidding when he said during breakfast that he hated the rain. "I kinda like it that way. Rain is nice. Craig always said about how he loved the wind…"

Craig… was he alive? I wondered as I went a little distractedly through the process of organizing our attack. The testing we had done had found that he must be… his body, back in the hospital, was still warm. So his spirit was alive somewhere. Giygas was without a doubt using him as bait to draw us into his home, at which point his intent was to capture or kill us; he knew just as well as we did that we had no choice but to take the bait. Giygas's only understanding of friendship was that it was a trait that induced humans to put their own lives in great danger.

"Sir, we're ready to leave when you are," said a soldier who had come up behind us.

"Good, we're ready right now then," I shouted, and he led the way to the helicopter that would transport us below enemy radar into the heart of the Giygas base.

**Chapter 8 – Stealth Invasion**

One of the most expert pilots in the GDI was in control of the stealth helicopter; I rode shotgun in the co-pilot's seat. Laura and Bobby took the seat behind us, and Josh filled the back seat quite nicely, shouting plenty loud enough to be heard by us in the front.

Laura was busy asking questions to which no one would probably ever truly know an answer. "Why do you always wear your sunglasses, or your mask?" she asked Bobby.

"To keep myself invisible," he said.

"Invisible? What do you mean..?

"The eyes are the windows into the mind and the soul," Bobby said in his usual strong but emotionless tone. "If you can't see my eyes, you can't really see me. I look in your eyes and I read your thoughts and your emotions. You are insecure, frightened, and still feeling out of place among people you don't know. You don't know Craig, either, but you're still willing to risk your life to save his. …Why?" Bobby was in the midst of one of the longest speeches I've ever heard him give; it was extremely rare to get as much as a complete sentence out of him. But his assessment of Laura was on target, and she knew it.

"I… I don't know…" she said.

"I do," said Bobby. "It's because there's something within you that gives you no choice. Because he was kind and protected you, as have Carl and Josh. And now he's in trouble and you can't bear the thought. So here you are, not knowing your own emotions but still following them. It's all in the eyes…"

"I know how I feel!" said Laura. "I feel… it's just so hard to put into words. Yes… I'm scared, maybe insecure… but I want to help him!"

"Emotions are overrated…" said Bobby, turning away and gazing out the window. "They cloud the judgment."

"How can you be so cold!" Laura said, frustrated at being unable to understand him. Bobby only continued to gaze out the window.

Josh leaned forward. "It's how he stays alive," he said with his usual half-smile. "Me, I hit the bottle of cough syrup to do it. To each his own, I say."

Laura, realizing that she and Bobby were nearly exact opposites and she would never understand him, sighed heavily and turned to gaze out her window. Bobby had realized that he didn't understand Laura and never would quite some time ago; of course, it didn't bother him a whole lot. Nothing did, or at least if it did, he never let anyone else know.

"We're getting close now," I shouted over the noise of the engine and the rotor blades. "Time to swoop in under the radar and go ahead of the invasion force."

"They know we're coming by now," said the pilot. "We gotta just avoid the radar and they should be too tied up to worry about us."

"Haha, if they see us on the radar they'll blow us out of the sky with their AA guns," said Josh. "Wouldn't that be fun?"

We held on to our seats as the helicopter swooped in to about a hundred feet. Finally, through the fog and rain, we could make out the outline of the Giygas base as we joined the front lines, the only humans amidst a sea of robot-controlled aircraft; we dropped in behind the very front lines and, faintly, saw at 7:32 AM the first shot connect with the side walls of the Giygas base.

The fight was immediately on. UFOs and all manner of exotic aircraft poured from the Giygan base. Explosions shook the sky all around as we fought to maintain our altitude and direction. The fighter helicopter directly to our left exploded with the impact of an antiaircraft shell; Giygan craft were suddenly all around us. Our transport helicopter was equipped to fight, but to fire our weapons meant making ourselves highly visible to enemy craft; therefore, we wouldn't fire unless it was absolutely necessary to avoid being detected or shot down.

The dogfight in the air was an amazing sight to behold, now that I had the opportunity to watch it; I had been in plenty of air battles before, but always actively engaged in combat and unable to take in the sights. The aircraft were amazingly fast and agile, and the lasers they were firing were even more so. Laura nearly cried out as she shrank away from the explosions around us. Bobby looked around, interested, and Josh looked around, not very interested.

Suddenly, as we were about to clear the front lines, the chopper was rocked back and forth and quickly lost altitude; we were nearly on our side, extremely close to turning over and crashing. Josh cried out in surprise and Laura screamed in fear as she found herself suddenly crunched against Bobby and clutching his arm since it was the closest thing; Bobby clutched his armrest for stability and Josh simply sat against the side before being pitched back across his seat. "What's going on!" Josh called from the back.

The pilot was too busy trying to stabilize the chopper to answer; "Something hit the blades…" Bobby said loudly. He was right; I looked up through the transparent hole in the ceiling and saw one crippled rotor blade trying to keep the chopper in the sky. Of course, the chopper was equipped to handle such a situation; the pilot quickly switched on the emergency flying system.

"We're gonna have to glide in now," he said.

"We need our altitude back," I said. "Gonna have to put on the jets until we're at about 120 and then glide in, and hope we stay under the radar and over the turrets."

"I don't know if we'll have enough jet power left for me to get back outta there though," said the pilot, "But we don't have any other options right now, hang on, turning on the jets…"

The "jets" were special, compact emergency jet rockets attached to the helicopter that could be used to gain altitude or extra speed if the rotors or the engine was lost. They had an extremely short fuel supply, though; the pilot was right in that he had little chance of keeping enough altitude to make it back to base or even the nearest aircraft carrier in the storm-tossed ocean. The only option to save him would be to get a carrier stationed close enough for him to land on without it being destroyed by Giygan ships. I went to my communicator while the pilot brought our altitude back up. "Carrier 40, come in," I said into it. When the reply came, I said, "We need you to move in for an emergency rescue landing of shuttlecraft 56. Get as close as you can and radio us your position in five minutes, please." Carrier 40, which was currently the closest we had to our position, radioed back in the affirmative. It was an extremely dangerous situation for all involved; there was still a better chance than I liked to see that none of us, including the carrier, would make it out alive. Still, at this point turning back was an even worse option in terms of our survival, and even if it was feasible we wouldn't do it, not with Craig still trapped inside the complex. We were going in.

The chopper-turned-plane swept low, just ten feet or so over the roof of the fortress. All around us the dark gray, storm-tossed sky was illuminated by the flashing of the bombs and rockets going off around us. "Get ready to go, guys," I said. "We're jumping in another minute or so."

"I gotcha," said Josh to Laura. "Wanna ride on my back? It's not too far of a drop, not for me anyway."

"I guess so," said Laura, still obviously frightened at the prospect of jumping from a moving helicopter – well, basically, an airplane, the way it was now.

"Alright, here we go!" I shouted, unstrapping my seat and sliding open the hatch on the chopper's floor, situated between Laura and Bobby's feet. Josh hopped over the back of the seat and prepared to jump. "Right," I said, turning to the pilot. "Find Carrier 40 on the radar and make tracks for it as soon as we're outta here, good luck!"

"No problem, I oughta make it," said the pilot.

"Alright, arms around my neck, put a good stranglehold on me, now," Josh directed Laura, who did just that; she gripped his neck tightly enough to make his eyes visibly pop open.

"Alright, I'll go first, Bobby second, you two last!" I shouted. "And make it fast since we're still moving so fast, too! Don't break your ankles on the landing!" The chopper was still going at about 70 MPH, much faster than we'd intended on it going with functional rotor blades; if we didn't land perfectly, our ankles would probably break like plywood.

I turned and nodded to the pilot, and then slid my feet out the hatch and let fly; I hit the ground hard and immediately flew down hard onto my side, letting my feet lift off the ground so they wouldn't break, and landed hard on my right arm, causing a serious bruise. Bobby landed cleanly, agile as a cat, falling only lightly onto his side; the air resistance of a 70 MPH jump made it impossible not to fall over. Josh, knowing this, jumped backward so that he'd fall forward rather than backward, since Laura was on his back; and so forward he went, flat on his chest, which naturally knocked the wind out of him but provided a nice cushion for Laura, who rose shaking but unhurt. Josh sprawled onto his back, trying to suck oxygen for a moment; Laura's lips moved, I think asking Josh if he was hurt. But Bobby pointed into the sky and we looked, just in time for a sickening sight.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. The chopper, still gliding on its wings, was making a wide, sweeping turn in its attempt to make it back to the waiting carrier. Two Giygan ships appeared from behind the base wall; one clipped a wing, throwing the chopper into chaotic motion. I knew at that moment that the chopper had no chance; I watched with a helpless and sick feeling in my stomach as it tried to steady itself, but the Giygan antiaircraft cannon had locked on. The explosion of a shell being fired ripped through the air around us, over the driving, soaking rain; a second later, we viewed the horrifying sight of the helicopter from which we had just seconds ago leaped exploding into a million fiery fragments, leaving behind it just five seconds later no trace save for a cloud of white smoke.

Laura opened her mouth to scream but Josh quickly covered it with his hand before she could; Bobby stood stock-still; I felt numb and devastated. Laura, still wanting to scream but unable to, buried her head against Josh's arm which he still was holding over her mouth, overcome by the thought of the now-dead pilot and the fact that, if we'd waited ten seconds, we too would be dead. I hung my head and closed my eyes briefly, trying to shake the image from my mind, knowing full well that we had to forget it and move on. Bobby walked cautiously to the edge of the roof section we were standing on and peered out at the battle, not caring to deal with the situation at hand.

"Man, that was a hit and a half… Josh said. He then finally pulled his hand away from Laura's mouth and turned her towards him. "Hey, listen to me!"

I shook my head hard and walked quickly over to join them; Laura was now drying her eyes, or trying to in this rain. "Look, that was horrible what just happened…" Josh was saying, "but it'll be even worse what happens to Craig if we don't get in there and find him. You gotta get yourself in that mindset."

Laura nodded, her breath finally returning to her. "I know… it's just… oh, it was awful! That pilot… it's just awful!" she repeated.

"I know it's awful," I said as quietly as I could and still be heard. "But let's go. We have to find Craig before it's too late."

Laura nodded again. "Alright, yes, let's go," she said.

I walked briskly to Bobby, who was still standing like a statue near the edge of the roof. "She's alright," I said. "We need to go in."

Bobby nodded.

I voiced the doubt that was nagging in my mind. "Will she be able to fight when she needs to?" I said. "She shies away from fighting… obviously can't handle the thought of death."

"She will fight," said Bobby. "And she will fight well. She can use PSI… don't forget that Giygas is still after her for that. If she wants to, she can fight better than any of us." I nodded; he was right. He was always so aware, even though no one really realizes it. He read people when it seemed he wasn't paying attention.

When Bobby and I returned, Laura seemed to be shaking the image of the exploding helicopter out of her head and focusing on the task ahead. We had to get into the Giygas base and then – this was the hard part – find Craig and get him out of there. Of course, we weren't looking for Craig, we had his body back at GDI headquarters; we were looking for his spirit, which Giygas had somehow extracted and now could have hidden anywhere, in any body. The hard part was exploring and staying alive long enough to find him, and not only that, get whatever body he's in back to GDI headquarters so Dr. Andonuts could put his spirit back into his body where it belonged.

Bobby climbed up to the highest point, about four feet above where we were standing, and looked around. "Over there," he said, pointing and beckoning us to follow him up, which we did quickly – we were still trying not to be detected by the various Giygan aircraft – and saw him sliding open a ventilation graft, cutting it with his dagger. He slid himself slowly in; we didn't hear a single sound as he landed on the floor. I quickly followed, sliding in, my feet making a slight sound as I hit the floor about six feet below the graft we had opened. I moved in Bobby's direction and Laura jumped down after me, landing just as cleanly; Josh followed after her, having no need to jump, he simply eased himself in and then slid the graft back in place. The passageway was only about six feet high. I could stand up in it, as obviously could Laura, but Bobby had to hunch over a little, and Josh had a lot of trouble fitting in, needing to basically crawl, and it wasn't very wide either, which also presented a squeeze problem for him.

The passageway was very dark, completely pitch-black in fact. Bobby armed his laser rifle, on which was attached a small flashlight. He led the way, which made sense since as an assassin he had many times before been in similar situations. We made our way slowly and carefully through what became an ever-lengthening labyrinth of tunnels as we crawled through the ventilation system, leaving a trail of sloppy rain water behind us as we began to dry out from the heavy rain in which we had been standing outside. All I could see was Bobby methodically finding his way around in front of me, and the slight, dull, off-white colored paneling that lined the ventilation shafts. I reached out and touched it: it gave a little, as if it were tough cushioning. We continued slowly. Right now, stealth was our chief concern.

Finally, after at least twenty minutes of crawling around and only one complaint from Josh about his creaky old muscles, Bobby stopped, causing me to almost run into him. When I stopped, I felt Laura bump into me from behind and barely contain a giggle as she whispered, "Sorry!"

Bobby slowly cut and pulled open a small grate and leaned over, peering below him. I looked down over his shoulder. What we saw was a small room with a lot of computer machinery but no soldiers. It would be about a ten foot jump down, but this time there wouldn't be room enough through the hole for Laura to ride on Josh's back. My initial idea was to have Josh go first and catch her, but then I remembered that the passageway we were in was far too narrow for even her to get around him; he was squeezed up against both sides. I turned to Laura and whispered, "We're gonna have to make a jump like…" I paused; I was going to say "like we did from the helicopter", but I didn't want to remind her of the helicopter in any way, so I recovered quickly and continued, "…like ten feet or so. You'll have to jump for it, but Bobby and I will be down there to catch you, alright?"

I could see the fear, that old fear, come across Laura's eyes as she looked into mine and blinked, beginning to overcome the fear just enough to understand. There was a long silence before she whispered, "Okay."

Bobby turned to me and nodded, and then slid himself through the hole and landed below, once again as cleanly and silently as a cat. I quickly followed, landing with an audible thump. I immediately drew my laser rifle and looked around. There was only one door, and Bobby was hiding out of its view behind a massive computer and beckoning for me to do the same on the other side of the room. I shook my head and pointed up, indicating to him that I had to wait for Laura, who obviously had no intent of her feet hitting the floor. My original plan was to have us both catch her, but Bobby kept his gun trained on the door while I waited for her. I could see her worried, frightened face looking down at me; I gave her a half smile and nodded. "Come on!" I stage whispered. "I'm down here, I'll catch you, just go for it!"

I could hear Josh whispering something from above, and chuckling, but I couldn't make out what it was, although I must say I have my guesses. She shut her eyes tightly, which seemed to be the way she intended to go, and slowly slid her feet through the hole and then paused; then, suddenly, she came down at me with a small, surprised shriek. I knew that Josh had given her a push from behind, but just as that thought came to my mind, Laura had fallen into me. My attempt to catch her just barely succeeded, with her landing ever-so-lightly on her feet and me falling backward onto my rear. Bobby didn't flinch, just kept his gun trained on the door while Josh grunted and shoved his body through a hole that was too small for it to easily fit.

When we were all on the ground and Laura had regained her breath, Bobby stepped forward to open the door. He leaned into it meticulously, slowly opening it and ignoring the creaking; he leaned his head out the door, looked out for a few seconds, and then turned back to us and nodded, indicating that we were to follow. I fell in behind him, and then Laura and Josh, the same way we had gone through the ventilation passage, as we stepped out the door. We were now in a much more roomy hallway, at the back corner of an L-shape, with a hall to our left and another straight ahead. To our left stood two massive mainframe computers. We drew our guns and kept them ready to fire as we followed Bobby straight ahead; there was a flight of metal stairs to the right (they resembled bleachers at high-school stadiums in structure and width) that turned 180 degrees to the right halfway up and then continued to a floor above us; the same pattern below. "Going down," said Bobby as he lightly stepped onto the stairs with the rest of us in cautious tow. We all made a slight clanging noise on the metal with our feet, but Bobby was absolutely noiseless; he had some form of padding in his shoes to make them silent. I'd imagined many times just how awful it would be to be Bobby's target; his stealth and his skill with his weapons were unparalleled.

When Bobby turned the corner to continue going downstairs, he fired two quick shots with his gun and then ducked back past us upstairs; we quickly fell in behind, fully ready to follow Bobby's lead. We all kept our guns trained on the corner; surely enough, four Starmen teleported right in front of us. They didn't have a chance to do anything though, before rapid-fire laser shots from all four of us, including Laura, who was actually quicker to the trigger than myself, reduced them to scrap metal. Bobby stayed crouched, intent, and therefore so did we. He was listening for any further activity, or possibly an alarm system, I knew.

After a few tense seconds, he rose and we followed him down the stairs. He leaned forward and looked left, then right, then suddenly dove his head back toward us just in time to dodge laser fire. "Get ready..!" he said, backing up a few stairs. And then they were upon us; sickeningly fast Lil' UFO's, small flying saucers the size of a pizza pan, and a few Starmen and two Atomic Power Robots, spherical robots known for exploding violently when attacked and for quickly repairing their fellow robots. We engaged quickly in a Star Wars-esque laser fight for a few seconds during which I took a hit and so did Laura, before Josh and Bobby simultaneously drew their swords and charged. I was carrying a sword but decided not to use it, and I knew Laura wasn't carrying one, so I wanted to stay back and cover her. "You take the right, I go left!" I said to Laura as I took aim with my laser. "Stay away from the round robots, they'll blow up and hurt Bobby and Josh!"

"All right!" Laura shouted as she fired and dodged around the stairway turn. Bobby and Josh were having a much easier time of it with their swords while Laura and I stayed back and held the enemies' attention with laser fire; Bobby shouted something to Josh and then dropped a grenade, and they both ran for the staircase. Two seconds later, the grenade went off, taking with its explosion the Atomic Power Robots and the two remaining Lil' UFO's.

"From above!" Josh shouted, causing us all to turn at a group of Starmen that were coming down from the floor we had just left. We engaged them for a little while, but more were coming, when I turned and saw another group of Starmen and an Atomic Power Robot from below, amidst the wreckage of the last unit.

"We're trapped!"

"Fight through!" said Bobby.

"Me and Bobby go low, Laura and Josh, you guys take care of the high ground!" I shouted, splitting us up, and into combat we went against robots that seemed to keep coming just as fast as we could dispatch them. I took up my Tazer Boy and took advantage of the Atomic Power Robot by making it explode, taking out another nearby Starman. Slowly but surely we whittled down their numbers, and then Bobby and Josh, having apparently taken care of their end of the fight, joined in and we finished them off.

"No time to talk, let's find some cover!" I said, wanting to get to somewhere where we could only be attacked from one direction, and also hoping for somewhere we could hide and catch our breath. Our shields were all low; Josh's was almost gone. I charged down the stairs and whirled around with my gun; the coast seemed clear. On the far end of the hallway we were now in to the right, I saw a door similar to the one from which we'd emerged earlier. "Let's duck in there, guys," I said. "We need to contact Ness and home base before we continue."

"This (darn) exploring around looking for Craig is gonna get us killed," said Josh as we quickly walked toward the door; I walked backwards to watch for more sentries. They knew where we were now, probably.

Bobby quietly opened the door and then closed it, and then turned to us and paused for a second before speaking. "Two technicians," he said. "They're human."

"Human? Are you sure!" I said, startled by what he'd said. Humans working in the Giygas base?

Bobby nodded. Josh looked perplexed for a moment and then shrugged. "Happened last time," Bobby said. "Giygas controls the evil in people's mind and makes them work for him. Let's get rid of them."

"Wait a second! Get rid of them?" Laura said. "They probably have families out there! We can't just kill them!"

"Military personnel are expendable," said Bobby. He turned, opened the door and fired two laser shots; the bodies hit the floor a second later. "Coast is clear."

Laura just stood there with her mouth open and a shocked expression in her eyes. Bobby and Josh were already inside the computer room we had found. "Laura," I said. I took her by the shoulders and gave a little shake to make her eyes focus. "It sounds cruel, but Bobby's right, it's war and people die in war. It's a sad thing but true. That's why we're trying to end the war! But if we didn't get rid of those two, we might have gotten killed ourselves. And there's no guarantee they're really human." I missed Craig sorely right then. He would have been able to explain it much better than I did.

Josh pulled mightily on my arm. "Will you get your lazy carcass in here before you get shot!"

I turned back to Laura. "Come on."

"All right." She seemed to be handling it better; I think she realized what I was saying, even if she didn't agree with it. We all got into the room and Laura lightly closed the door behind her.

**Chapter 9 -- MechaCraig**

I sat in front of the computer, which seemed remarkably like the ones we had in GDI headquarters and which had a standard English keyboard, and tried to get into the Giygan main systems, from which I hoped to be able to run a search on anything pertaining to Craig. Meanwhile, Josh was attempting to establish contact both to GDI headquarters and to Ness's group.

"Ness, come in! Wilson here…" He stage-whispered into his communicator. Bobby and Laura crouched, keeping their lasers trained on the door; Bobby had moved the bodies of the men he had killed behind a computer, out of our view.

"This is Ness! We had to wait to get into a room, sorry!" Ness's 14-year-old voice came into the communicator.

"Good! Did you find anything?" asked Josh.

"Yeah, we think we know where Giygas is at…" said Ness, "but we're still a long way from it, it's way underground…"

"Good, is your party in good shape?"

"We're alright."

"Did you come across anything about Casner?"

"Nope, not a thing."

"Alright, keep up the work…"

Meanwhile, I was staring at the computer screen, which was bombarding me with information but none of it anything that I wanted to know. I typed in various commands, trying to make the computer tell me something about the whereabouts of Craig, or his spirit, or whatever form they had him in. I went on and on and on, not finding anything, and then kept on going and still wasn't finding anything and… "Bingo!"

I said it out loud as I got a lock on what was referred to in the computers as "the Craig Casner Project" (abbreviated CCP in the computer). I downloaded and printed all the files I could, totaling 133 pages, as Josh continued trying to establish contact to home base.

"What did you find?" asked Laura, now at my shoulder, peering at a screen of code that didn't seem to make much sense to her.

"I'm still trying to find out…" I said, grabbing some papers and skimming over them, looking for some valuable information.

"What?" Josh nearly shouted, loud enough to turn our heads. "Are you sure?" He had a look in his eyes that I only saw when something very bad had happened. "All right… but everything else is alright?"

"Not too many casualties…" General O'Connor was saying over the communicator. "Besides the major one, that is… in terms of machinery we're alright even if they attack us now. The defenses are together."

"Alright, good job," said Josh. "Seems Carl found something, so we're gonna go on our little scavenger hunt now."

"Gotcha, chief," said O'Connor. "You guys better come back alright."

"I'll get back to you on that one…" Josh said as he flipped off the communicator and then looked at us.

"What happened..?" I said, raising my eyebrows.

"General Manolo was shot down…" said Josh in a low voice. "KIA/BNR…"

"Shot down! Oh my God, is he alright!" asked Laura, who was unfamiliar with our military jargon.

"KIA/BNR stands for 'Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered'…" I said in a low voice, furrowing my brow. "Someone must have seen him go down… no way to recover him in the storm." I buried my hands in my face and ran them down past my neck quickly and heavily, sighed heavily and shook my head.

"Probably won't wash up, more likely he's fish food…" Josh said, shaking his head. "That totally sucks." Josh wasn't the kind to get very emotional, but he certainly spoke the truth.

"They're going to find us soon if we don't move out of here…" said Bobby, also speaking the truth. Laura stayed silent, seemingly battling to maintain control over herself and doing a fine job so far. It's an awful thing the way a person has to acquaint and harden him or her self to death in times of war. I was still shaking my head hard to try to focus myself as I looked through the papers, and finally found what I was looking for, even though it was the last thing I wanted to see.

"Dear God…" I said as I read the papers in disbelief.

"What's going on now? Did you find something about Craig?" asked Josh. Laura snapped back into awareness, out of her stunned state.

"CCP, the Craig Casner Project…" I said. "They've placed his spirit into a powerful robot… and it's been programmed to seek and destroy us. Our names are in here… 'Carl Williams, Josh Wilson, Bobby Hokela, and Laura St. Clair. The spirit knows each of them well and therefore will have no trouble recognizing them, and since we have complete control over it while we have it inside our machine, it has been programmed to eliminate them.'" I quoted from the papers, and then flipped near the end of them and read, " 'MechaCraig is currently on patrol in the complex, seeking its targets.'" I looked up.

"They know we're here…" said Bobby.

"How recently was that last thing you read put in the computer?" asked Josh.

I typed rapidly on the computer, getting it to bring up the log. "7:26 AM."

"That's just about the time we first went in here, isn't it?" asked Laura.

"Yeah, right around there…" I said.

"So, they've known we're in here all along…" said Bobby.

"Which means they're looking for us now… they have Craig looking for us now. He's going to try to kill us… by the specifics of this machine, he won't have a hard time either, if he finds us."

The door suddenly swung open. Bobby, the only one in the room who still had his weapon ready, fired twice and caused two small explosions; I dashed forward and slammed the door shut while Josh and Laura grabbed their lasers.

There was a bunch of buzzing and clicking going on outside; no robots were opening the door now, but they seemed to be communicating. I whirled my head toward Josh, Laura and Bobby as I grabbed my gun. "They're calling for something…"

"MechaCraig…" Josh said. "They must be calling him in."

"We need to escape before he gets here…" said Bobby.

"No!" Josh shouted. "I'm staying right here and facing him!"

"He'll kill us…" said Bobby. "We need to leave now."

"I'm NOT leaving Craig here! I'm gonna either wake him up or die trying!" said Josh.

I looked at Laura; she seemed to be displaying the same indecisiveness as I was at the time. They were both right, of course; I knew full well that MechaCraig would probably kill us with little trouble. Our lasers wouldn't bother him a bit, although the electricity might… but if we destroyed the robot, there was a chance we could be killing him. If we killed him, our mission would be a failure anyway… on the other hand, Josh was right. Our mission was to not leave until we had located Craig and, if he was still alive, bring his spirit back with us, and I couldn't easily leave and leave him here. Besides that, he was programmed to destroy us, and if we left he would follow us back to GDI headquarters, so eventually we'd have to face him anyway… with the GDI's war technology we could easily destroy him but, again, I didn't want to.

"Well! You're in charge!" shouted Josh. A loud noise outside turned our heads.

A heavy, metallic clang.

Another one.

Another one. Getting closer.

It was footsteps… heavy, metallic footsteps.

"It's coming…" said Bobby.

"What are we gonna do!" Laura cried, still holding her weapon at the door.

I made my decision right then and there. "Let's go out and fight him…" I said, jumping forward and kicking the door open. Immediately, the six Starmen standing outside began to fire, and I returned fire, quickly backed up by my friends; we made quick work of the Starmen.

"Oh my God…" said Laura.

I turned. "There it is..!"

MechaCraig stood before us, only fifteen feet away, staring us down. It was a gigantic robotic machine, about twelve feet high and six feet across, with a round, open top, equipped with massive guns and cannons on both sides. Inside the open top, piloting it, sat a robot, an advancement of the Starman series with a face that had been molded from Craig's but with the classic Starman black eye cover.

"So, it's you…" It was Craig's voice… it sounded like through a poor microphone, or as if he was speaking through the rotating blades of an electric fan, but it was his voice.

"Craig!" Josh shouted. "Do you know who we are!"

"Yes you fool, I know who you are…" Craig replied in a low, ominous tone. The mouth on his robotic mask wasn't moving while he talked, while he stared at us from his machine. I stood frozen, as did Laura; Bobby and Josh were tensed and ready to fight. "You… are… the enemy! And you must be destroyed!" Without warning, he fired a loud and fast laser from his right cannon, blasting Josh and throwing him hard against the wall.

"JOSH!" I screamed, falling to my knees, praying he was alive.

He was alive. "Shields are gone… damn you!" He quickly jumped back to his feet. "Wake up, Craig! WAKE UP!"

"He isn't hypnotized…" said Bobby. "His spirit has been transferred from good to evil…"

"You are the evil!" shouted Craig in his metallic voice. Suddenly, the machine charged us with astonishing quickness. We dodged out of the way, but he was after Bobby. Bobby fired at Craig, but the lasers bounced off without denting the machinery. He had Bobby pinned against the wall now. He stared down at him. "More than anything you fear death, assassin," he said. "Now… it is time to face your fear!"

"NO!" I shouted, charging forward without the slightest idea what I intended to do. I was blasted backward by a sickeningly powerful laser blast, knocking me fifteen feet down the hall and hitting the floor hard. As I lay there trying to regain the breath that had been powerfully knocked out of me, Laura ran and knelt by my side.

"Carl! Are you alright!" The overwhelming concern and fear was in both her voice and her eyes. She whirled her head around to look at Craig, MechaCraig, whatever the thing was.

I slowly propped myself up on my elbows as blood dribbled out of my mouth from my tongue, which had been cut open by my teeth as I had hit the ground. "I'm fine," I said, spitting out blood. I didn't have to look to know that my shield gauge, like Josh's, was now at zero. But I got back up and ran back to where Josh stood helplessly watching Craig verbally assault Bobby, playing with his food, so to speak.

"First, let's just break the sword arm…" said Craig, almost playfully, beginning to lean on Bobby. Bobby's right forearm broke with an audible crack. He made no sound, even in the excruciating pain in which he must have been. I shut my eyes tight, trying to drive out the horrible sound.

"Now for the other arm…" said Craig.

"NO! PLEASE!" Laura cried, dropping to her knees, sobbing. "Don't hurt him any more! Please, Craig… don't…" she lost her voice in tears.

"Laura…" I said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"You sick son of a bitch!" Josh screamed, back on his feet, glaring at Craig. "How dare you do this to this man! How DARE you put this innocent girl through this!" Laura continued quietly sobbing.

Craig hesitated. He backed the machine off a step from where he had Bobby pinned against the wall; Bobby dropped hard to the floor, immediately clutching his badly broken right arm. Craig stared down at Laura for a few seconds, not saying anything, and then suddenly shook his metallic head. "Then I'll put her out of her misery fir—GAAAAH!"

Bobby, from the ground, was firing repeat pulses from his Tazer Boy, which undoubtedly were screwing with Craig's circuitry as the robot convulsed and made strange metallic noises. Bobby continued firing until the rider machine fell to its knees and Craig – or, rather, the Craig robot – tumbled out onto its stomach, still convulsing even though Bobby had stopped firing.

"Let's get out, NOW!" Bobby shouted, jumping up; he was tying his right arm to his waist with a rope he carried to keep it in place.

"What about Craig!" Josh shouted.

Bobby didn't bother to answer. He ran, we followed, and Josh had no choice but to do the same. We were a good way down the hall, at this point being pursued by a growing legion of Starmen, when we heard the dull sound of an explosion behind us. We knew it was MechaCraig. We had no way right then, however, of knowing whether Craig was now dead, and we really didn't have a chance to think much about it. We could think now of only one thing: A desperate attempt to escape. I grabbed my communicator. "O'Connor!" I shouted while we were running.

"O'Connor here!" she relayed back immediately, sensing my urgency.

"I need multiple stealth shuttlecrafts to the initial invasion point RIGHT NOW!" I said and put the communicator back on my hip; we followed Bobby around a corner and into a room, where he and Josh shot two Starmen and one human technician. Suddenly, I felt a searing pain in my back and hit the floor hard; I had been shot by a laser with my shields down, and was now writhing on the ground, gasping for air. I suddenly felt myself being lifted up and seemingly floating through the air; I felt the oxygen leave me and I lost consciousness.

I was being carried on Josh's shoulder up into the ventilation system, unconscious now, as Starmen were still hot on our trail. They were hoping against hope that the shuttlecraft I had sent for would be awaiting them when they made it out. It was their only hope to make it back to GDI. Our mission, for better or worse, was over, and we had no chance at this point of helping Ness and his friends, who were at this point on their own. Wretched, defeated, all we could do was hope and believe in the Chosen Four.

Bobby led the way, somehow shutting out the crushing pain from his arm that vibrated throughout his whole body. Having been in many similar situations before, dating back to years before the GDI existed, he had an instinctive knowledge of where to go and how to stay ahead of his pursuers. Josh and Laura followed closely behind him, with me still slung over Josh's right shoulder. Josh said later that on multiple occasions he hit my head off the ceiling (he was too tall for the passageways in the ventilation system to begin with).

Their heads turned at the sound of a small buzzing throughout the ventilation system. "What the heck is that!" Josh shouted.

"They're turning on the heat," said Bobby as he continued running. "We have to get out now, if we're still in here when the heat comes on we're dead." He found the first possible exit, slammed it open and climbed out; Laura and Josh followed, and immediately they were dodging laser and missile fire from Giygan battle craft that were trying to kill us. Bobby stood and looked around, looking for the point from which we had initially entered, unable to find it. His head swerved at the sound of the explosion of a defeated Giygan craft, a joyous sound to hear because it meant it had been destroyed by a GDI shuttlecraft. Bobby ran in the direction of the explosion, followed closely by Josh and Laura; a laser blast grazed my arm and opened a deep wound that would leave a permanent scar. Sure enough, the shuttlecraft appeared, and we leaped onto it just as it took off at 450 MPH toward the GDI headquarters, dodging laser and missile fire all the way. This time, the missiles did collateral damage to Summers, although thankfully no people were hurt. Finally, at 3:28 PM, only about eight hours after the initial invasion, we the GDI invaders returned to GDI headquarters, battered and bruised both in body and spirit.

**Chapter 10 – The Awakening**

Josh, who was still carrying me on his shoulder, Bobby, and Laura walked back into GDI headquarters. They were met immediately by General O'Connor, who took one look at them and knew just what they had been through. She greeted them with "You guys need to get down to the hospital right now!"

"Really? You think?" Josh said with all the sarcasm he could muster; even he was showing signs of wear after those past few hours that had seemed as if they had taken forever.

"I'll send for gurneys, you guys wait here," Leslie said.

Josh turned. "Can you walk, Laura?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine…" Laura said miserably, snapping out of the daydream in which she had been engaged.

"Good, we can handle it then," said Josh. "I'm sure Bobby won't complain."

"Why's your arm tied down?" Leslie asked, glancing at Bobby's right arm.

"Broken," he said. "Long story."

"We'll tell it later," Josh growled over his shoulder as they continued walking. He led them down to the GDI hospital complex, easily the most high-tech hospital in the world. Josh dropped my limp body down on the first bed he could find and crashed on the next. All four of us were taken in for treatment. As it turned out, Josh had hauled me all the way out of the building with a heavily bruised left ribcage; he never complained or even winced about it once. Bobby's fracture was severe but, thankfully, clean; the doctors inserted a small metal rod and an internal body cast and stitched it back up. His arm would be functional, although it would put him in pain when he used it. Like Josh, though, he wouldn't complain about it, so it's hard to say how much it really did hurt him.

I was in worse shape. The laser shot had narrowly missed my spinal cord; another inch to the right and I would never have walked again. As it was, the beam punctured my left lung and chipped a rib, leaving clean entry and exit wounds. It also nicked a major vein near my heart, but luckily the heat of the beam caused the wound to seal itself. If it hadn't, I'd have bled to death. Lucky me. I would be fine by the next day. Laura had a clean bill of health, she was just a little worn down emotionally. But that would change soon.

I returned to consciousness to be greeted by Josh's always-humorous looking face. "Hey, Carl! Welcome back to the land of the living!"

"Uhh…" I propped myself up on my elbows and frowned at the IV tubes in both my hands. "GDI hospital… I got shot…"

"Right in the back, the cheap bastards," Josh said, shaking his head. "Missed your spinal cord by about this much." He held his fingers about an inch apart.

"Mmm, my back is so sore…" I said, gingerly wincing. It hurt to breathe. "Got my lung, didn't it…"

"Mm-hmm." Josh nodded. "Punctured your left lung, but it's been all patched up now. You'll be fine in a few."

"General Williams!" Dr. Andrew Williams, our chief doctor, strode up.

"Andrew, can we get rid of these needles now?" I said, beckoning towards my hands with my head.

"Oh! Yes, certainly." He flipped off the machines. "This will hurt just a bit…"

Josh laughed. "Just a bit, ha! What he means is it'll hurt like hell, but oh well." He was right, of course, but, to repeat what he said since I can't phrase it better, oh well. I winced at the pain that shot through my arms as Dr. Williams quickly pulled out the needles, taking no time to ease pain.

"As I was saying!" Dr. Williams continued. "Commander Casner is back alive!"

Three of our pairs of eyes (Laura was there too but quiet at the time) shot wide open. Bobby remained stoic. "Alive! Are you serious!"

"Very! His spirit somehow just suddenly returned to his body… no side effects, he's his same old self now!"

"Haha, it worked!" Josh shouted, overcome with joy for one of the few times in his life. "It really WORKED!" I'd never seen him smile so widely before.

I shot up off the bed, wincing and groaning just slightly at the pain from my side. "Where is he?"

Dr. Williams turned around. "Should be… ah, right there!"

"Craig!" Laura was first to the draw, with the first word I'd heard her speak since we left the Giygan base.

"Oh, Laura… guys…" Craig was standing there in the flesh, healthy as ever, it seemed – but it looked as if he were somehow even more tired than us.

"Craig!" Josh jumped at him and grabbed his arms and shook him. "Haha, it's really you!" He smiled widely and lifted Craig in a bearhug. "You have no idea what we've been doing!"

Craig was smiling too, but the smile faded when Josh released him. "That's not entirely true… I remember bits and pieces of things…"

"What!" I said, perplexed. "You remember MechaCraig...?"

"Only a little bit…" he said. His voice sounded tired. "I passed into consciousness a few times… it was strange. I think I was unaware of what I was doing most of the time, but…"

"What happened?" I asked.

"When they captured me… they took me into one of their ships and to the base. At the base, they threw me into a tube. I felt a terrible pain and passed out… when I woke up, I felt like I was in a dream. Everything was blurry… everything sounded funny. I heard two people or things talking… saying something like 'he will do our bidding' and 'he is nearly complete'. I looked down at myself and saw only metal… and then I passed out again."

"Were you awake later?" said Josh. "Did you..?"

Craig breathed heavily. He was terribly troubled in mind. "Let me finish. The next time I woke up, I was marching down the hall… it felt strange. I knew I was after you, but I didn't know why… I was piloting a huge metal machine… that must have been MechaCraig, as you were saying, Carl. But I knew where you were and I wanted to find you… I couldn't tell what I was feeling. But then I lapsed into unconsciousness again.

"I awoke a third time… I looked down and I was pinning Bobby against the wall. I… I don't know why, but I wanted to…" He shut his eyes briefly and then shook his head. "I wanted to hurt him. Josh was shouting something at me I couldn't make out… I wanted to hurt him, too. I don't know why… I never in a million years would…"

"They were controlling you, Craig…" I said, stepping forward, not noticing for a moment that Bobby and Laura had joined me, forming a semicircle around him.

He shook his head hard, as if trying to fight the image of an awful nightmare out of his head. "Then I heard Laura's voice… I let Bobby go and turned toward it, I couldn't help it and I still didn't know why. I saw her crying on the ground, saying something I couldn't hear… I don't know what happened. This huge wave of… of _something_ swept over me, I felt overwhelmed and then I lapsed out of consciousness again… guys… what happened? I did that to you, didn't I..? He was looking at Bobby's wrapped-up arm.

"Yes," Bobby replied.

"They were controlling you, Craig… it wasn't really you," I said. "You have to believe that… we're still the best friends you have. We always will be. It wasn't you we were fighting…"

"No!" Craig thundered, taking me aback. He shook his head hard again. "It _was_ me! It's just like the weird way people were acting before… yes, it was control… but he was controlling the evil in my mind… the evil in my mind overcame the good! Why? Is there so much evil…?" Tears were coming into his eyes; I had seen him cry only twice before. It took a lot to move him that far. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry I betrayed you…"

"You did NOT betray us!" Josh shouted. His face was red, the veins in his neck bulging in anger. "Snap out of it! We ALL have evil in us, Craig, you know that! He was controlling it, and he isn't anymore! It could've been any one of us if he'd decided to take us!" He paused. "And we're still here with you!" Josh was growing frustrated watching Craig in such a state.

Craig sighed. "I need to rest… and we still have a war to fight. But I have to rest and sort things out… I'm sorry." He pushed past me and exited the hospital, making for his personal room, no doubt. We just stood there in shock for a few minutes. Craig was always so level-headed. Even in the toughest, most stressful situations, even in circumstances that would have killed a lesser man, Craig never flinched. I'd never in my life seen him so badly shaken.

Bobby, of all people, broke the silence. "Leave him alone. He'll be all right."

"He might rest, but he's not gonna sleep…" said Josh. Then something almost audibly clicked in his head, and he turned to me. "Carl, we gotta get in touch with Ness right about now!"

**Chapter 11 – The Battle of Battles**

Poo leaned over with his hands on his knees, panting while the Chosen Four hid and rested after the latest fight against legions of Starmen. The Starmen were really little match for their PSI, but still, they were wearing out the group of kids. The Chosen Four had been journeying through the complex, working their way deep underground, for well over twelve hours now; it had been a few hours since we had left.

"Ness! Come in!"

Ness flipped on his communicator. "This is Ness…"

"General Williams here." I could hear the fatigue in his voice. "Are you guys doing all right?"

"We're getting tired…" said Ness, glancing at his watch, which read 8:56 PM. "But we're getting close."

"We're terribly close…" Paula said. "I can sense the evil…"

"Did you guys find Commander Casner?" Ness asked.

"Yes, we found him," I said. "He's back here now, thank God. We're all praying for you back here."

"Thank you…" said Ness. "It was the prayers of others that defeated Giygas the last time… I hope history repeats."

"It's up to you, but you are not alone…" I said. "You fight representing the whole world. And we're all behind you."

"We need to move on…" Ness said. "Before we get too tired."

"Good luck, Ness," I said. "We'll see you soon." I clicked out. And these were just kids; truly remarkable.

"Alright, guys," said Ness.

"It's time," said Poo.

"I have an awful feeling…" said Paula.

"Are you okay?" asked Ness, concerned.

"Yes… I don't know what it is, but we must fight!" A brave group of kids, this was.

"Let's go."

The group came out of the room in which they were hiding and continued fighting their way through the swarms of Starmen and Octobots, down a seemingly endless stream of stairs, poles and elevators, deep into the heart of the increasingly dark labyrinth beneath the Giygas base.

Ness's watch read 10:12 PM when they came to what seemed to be some sort of portal. "Listen…" said Poo.

"It's… it's Giygas…" Jeff said as he listened along with his friends to the horrible alien groans. Slowly, they began to pick out a word.

"Neeeeessssss… Neeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss…"

"He knows we're here…" there was no mistaking the fear in Paula's eyes.

There was no mistaking the fear in anyone's eyes, but it was only an instant before their eyes turned to fierce determination. "We must go… for the sake of the Earth, we must go!" Prince Poo said.

Ness slowly lifted up his hands toward the stretching black curtain that was slowly pulsating with evil energy. Suddenly, as his fingers made contact, he was pulled through with frightening speed, without even time to cry out.

"NESS!" Paula screamed. She didn't hesitate for a second; she dove in after him. Jeff and Poo were right behind.

"Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssss…"

Ness stood. His friends stood beside him, their weapons drawn. They looked down; they were standing on nothing. All around them was blackness, but their own figures were illuminated with a strange aura, the perfect image of good standing out against a great expanse of evil. Suddenly, in front of them charged at them a quickly and frighteningly growing image of the horrible face of Giygas. "AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEE!" They all screamed as they hit the deck, but the image of Giygas filled the entire void in which they were standing.

"Neeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssss…" Giygas's head returned to a similar huge size to what it had been when they fought him in the tunnel of the past. "I'm so sad, Ness…. I…m… h…a…p…p…y…"

Giygas's attack came at them like a freight train, a terrible cold that slammed them and knocked them down; Jeff found himself unable to move.

"Your… world… means… noth…ing… to… me…"

"But it means everything to us!" cried Paula, standing.

Poo swung his Sword of Kings mightily at the image of Giygas that hovered before them. Giygas groaned with pain and flashed a shade of pink. Paula prayed with her whole heart… "Somebody… please help us…"

"There will… be… no… heeeeelp… this… time…"

Ness closed his eyes and concentrated hard. Powerful psychokinetic rays slammed into Giygas, causing the alien mastermind to groan again.

"I… do not… perrrrrriiiish…" Again, Giygas's attack slammed into them, powerful electricity that caused them all to cry out in pain.

"Someone, anyone… please help us…" Paula prayed, sweating in concentration. Suddenly, Giygas began flashing and the void began to shake. Giygas was weakening.

"It's working..!" Jeff cried, moving again and setting off a Multi-Bottle Rocket. It fired through Giygas's form until it could be seen or heard no more.

"Gruuuuuuuuuuuu… Neeeeeeessssssssss… It hurts…. It hurts…" Giygas's attack exploded in a monstrous white flash. Suddenly, Poo keeled over and fell unconscious. "I… I can't move!" Jeff cried.

Ness was crying uncontrollably, unable to see through the blur created by the tears in his eyes. He concentrated on Poo. "Healing! Heal Poo now!"

Poo slowly rose to his feet and closed his eyes, healing himself to full strength.

"Someone… help us… please!" Paula's call echoed, being absorbed by the darkness.

"Your calls… will… not… be… answered… this… time… you… shall… peeeeerish…"

Another wave of shocking cold slammed into the group like a train. They were weakening. Paula continued praying hard, blocking out the pain and Giygas's awful, foreboding groans.

"Your… lives… are… over… here…" The very sound of Giygas's horrible voice caused the group to fear, but they stood strong as the Chosen Ones against Giygas.

"Yes… yes!" Paula cried out, lifting up her head. "I can feel the waves! Giygas shall be slain!"

The void around them began to shake and flash violently. "Gruuuuuuuuuu… noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…" Giygas uttered a long, horrible groan. "If I… die… I'm… taaaaaaakiiiiing… you… with… meeeeeeeee…"

What!" Ness shouted. But before any more could be said, the entire void exploded in a blast of bright, pinkish light.

Ness looked up. He heard the sound of an intercom. "Giygan Self-Destruct mode activated," a robotic voice echoed. The base will self-destruct in fifteen seconds."

"NESS!" Jeff screamed. "This thing's gonna blow up in fifteen seconds! We have to try to escape!"

Ness leaped to his feet; his friends were already up. They were in a small room; desperately, they ran out, looking for any means of escape, but immediately hundreds of Starmen clogged the halls. Poo unleashed a blast of Starstorm, but the Starmen kept coming. Teleport was useless. They were trapped…

Hopeless.

"Oh, my God!" Jeff cried, tears streaming down his face.

"Ten… nine… eight…"

Ness looked up at the ceiling and swallowed hard, tearing up. They had defeated Giygas… but it would be their last act, he realized with a sickening wrenching of his stomach. They were going to die.

"Seven… six…"

Poo closed his eyes. "We're still so young…"

"Five… four… three…"

Jeff fell to his knees, the energy completely drained out of him. Paula dropped lightly down to hers as well and closed her eyes tight. "We have accomplished our goal… we have fulfilled our destiny. Giygas… is defeated." Two tears trickled down her face.

"Two… one…"

With a horrible, earth-shattering explosion at nearly twice the sonic-boom noise threshold, the gigantic Giygas Base violently exploded, breaking the entire island of Fiveville into indiscernible pieces and rocking the earth with such force that it damaged buildings in Summers, forty miles away. Debris from the explosion was found as far away as Twoson.

**Chapter 12 – Revival of a Leader**

"What in the hell was THAT!" Josh shouted as the terrible, vicious sound ripped through, its shock waves creating an earthquake that measured 4.1 on the Richter Scale from the shores of Summers.

"Earthquake…" I said. "But there aren't any faults around here… what happened?"

"Wonder if it has to do with the Giygas base…" Josh said, taking his communicator. "Ness! Do you read me? NESS!"

"I have a bad feeling about this…" said Laura.

"Let's go figure this out…" I said, walking briskly past the other three to where Marshal Dave Bausner was on duty monitoring the area, downstairs in the Control Center room. They fell in line behind me, Bobby, Josh, then Laura.

We hadn't seen any of Craig since he'd left our company and gone to his room two hours before. We had established contact with Ness, and last we heard the Chosen Four were getting very close to Giygas. I was very worried about Craig, who had seemed extremely upset at his previous acts and had gone off by himself. He often excused himself from our company when he wished to be alone and think things out. He did it quite often, but usually when times were hardest he wanted to be in the company of his friends. I wanted to drop in on him, but something I couldn't entirely put my finger on was holding me back. Looking at Josh, it seemed he felt much the same way. Laura, however, seemed more troubled than anyone, but she followed silently behind us as we made our way to Control Center.

"Dave!" I shouted. "What happened here!"

Marshal Bausner rose from his chair and looked at us with a look in his eyes that told us he had some major news, not entirely good. "I have good news and bad news, General."

"Out with it, no playing games," Josh snarled.

"Very well," Bausner said with a slightly sad shrug. "The good news is that that was the shock waves from the Giygas Base. It has been completely destroyed; it, and Fiveville in fact, no longer exists. The bad news…"

"Oh God…" Laura's voice broke. We all knew what the bad news was.

"Ness…" I whispered into the startling stillness.

Marshal Bausner nodded slowly, avoiding Josh's piercing eyes. "They were inside… we lost contact with them for awhile but regained it fifteen seconds before it went off. There was a countdown… as far as we can tell, a massive self-destruct was enabled. They were inside… I don't believe there's any chance that they're alive. Do you want to change their status..?"

"Change their status" meant change them from OA (On Assignment) to KIA/BNR (Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered, as stated earlier). For once, I was glad to no longer be in command of the GDI. "Commander Casner is back now," I said. "I'm no longer in command, so he'll have to do it."

"I tried to contact him, but he said he wasn't prepared to leave his quarters yet," said Bausner.

"Does he know..?" I asked.

"Yes, I told him," Bausner said. "He said he would remain in his quarters until tomorrow, most likely. He sounded like he wasn't feeling well."

"No, he's not…" I said.

"Needs some sense slapped into him if you ask me, but I'll just back off for now…" said Josh. Laura shot him a "how could you?" kind of glance, but it was just the way he was. Craig was in fact one of Josh's closest friends.

At this point there was a long period of silence. We were all dumbfounded and overwhelmed with grief, just staring at the floor. Tears silently streamed down Laura's cheeks. Josh bit his lip so hard it began to bleed.

After what felt like an eternity, I sighed heavily. "So the mission is accomplished… but at what a cost…"

"The worst thing is there's no guarantee Giygas is dead anyway, he mighta escaped right before it went off… just like last time," Josh said.

"We don't think so," said Bausner. "He faded slowly for a few minutes, got very weak, and then disappeared off our detectors this time. Last time they fought him, he just disappeared all of a sudden. We think he died…"

"But are you one hundred percent sure?" asked Josh.

Bausner moved his head from side to side, thinking to himself. "No, we can't be one hundred percent sure, of course not… but we're fairly sure of it."

"Can't disband the GDI then, can we?" said Josh.

"We'll burn that bridge when we get there…" I said. I glanced at my watch and breathed heavily. "It's late, we need to get some sleep…"

"Yeah, SURE I'll sleep, no problem at all, after Craig and now this…" Josh said, shaking his head. "Might as well turn in, anyway. Nothin' I like better than nightmares, after all…" I find it hard to believe he had nightmares, since he wasn't afraid of anything.

"There's still no sense in hanging around awake…" I sighed heavily again. "This has been the longest day of my life, and I'm worn out. I'm going to bed and I recommend you all do the same. Good night." I made my way past them and walked quickly upstairs. On the way to my room, I thought of Craig and hoped that he would be alright after resting some more; I missed the Craig I knew, the one who had been kidnapped by Giygas. We might have gotten his spirit back into his body, but we still didn't seem to have him back. I hoped Josh would be able to sleep, and thought about how humorous it seemed that he, of all people, would be worried about something. Despite all the tough exterior, and for the most part tough interior, the deaths of the Chosen Four hit him hard; I was fairly certain he'd be back in his usual spirits by the morning, though. And then there was Laura, who was trusting us a little more but was obviously as troubled as I was about Craig. She had to rebuild her life, too. And I hoped that Ness, Paula, Jeff and Prince Poo, the heroes who had saved the world twice now, would be able to rest in peace. The war was over.

Craig rose his head from his desk at the sound of his door buzzer. "Who is it? I really don't feel like doing anything right now…"

"Um… Craig? You said once to call you Craig…"

He raised his eyebrows and then frowned. "Laura? Is that you?"

"Yes…" she said. "Um, can I come in and talk to you?"

There was a long pause as Craig shut his eyes. He remembered that flash when he was in Giygas's robotic armor; poised to kill Bobby, he had hesitated and returned to consciousness briefly at the sight of Laura. Why? Finally, he looked up at the door and hit the button to open it. "Sure, I told you the day before they took me that I would talk to you again…" He sighed as she entered the room timidly and slowly made her way to a chair in front of Craig's desk. From behind the desk, he watched her sit. Craig was leaning forward with his elbows on his desk, his arms crossed. "What's on your mind?" he said, trying unsuccessfully not to sound weary.

"Well, I…" she hesitated. "I mean, I was just wondering if you're alright…" she was staring down at the front of his desk as she said the words.

Craig sighed heavily and looked up from the desktop. "I don't know… what I've done is so horrible… how could I ever be forgiven?"

"That's not true! You were under control…" Laura cut in. "It wasn't your fault, Craig… the only thing that's hurting us is how you're being… this way…"

Craig closed his eyes and sighed again. "I don't know, Laura… I presume you're aware of what happened to Ness and his friends?"

Laura nodded.

"All dead… yes, they saved the world… but did it really have to come out this way? If I hadn't been attacking you…"

Laura rose and gazed out the window of the office; it was a spectacular view of the Summers beach, late at night. After the storm earlier that day, it was now a crystal-clear night, and the stars twinkled and reflected off the calm ocean.

Craig watched as she walked slowly to the window. "Why… why did you come here? I mean, to my office just now?"

"I just wanted you to be your old self again…" she said. "I didn't know you very well, but… when you talked to me, I liked it… I liked you then. I just… I just want everything to be normal again!" A small tear rolled down her left cheek as she stammered.

Craig rose and stood looking out the same window, keeping a five foot or so distance from Laura to her right. "The GDI's intent was always to save lives… and now look… General Manolo is dead… Ness, Paula, Jeff, Poo… all dead… and I was about to… to…" he shut his eyes and winced hard, as if in terrible pain, but he finished his sentence. "…I was about to kill the four of you, my only true friends… what have I done? I'm supposed to be the leader of the GDI…"

"But you've done so well!" cried Laura, raising her voice for the first time since she'd arrived with the GDI. "You HAVE saved so many lives…" she broke down into tears as she continued with her sentence, "… all of my friends… my home… Giygas destroyed them all… but you… the GDI have beaten him! He can't hurt me like this anymore…" The tears continued to flow; she was overwhelmed by the reality of her own situation and the seeming futility of making Craig see the light.

But, slowly and suddenly at the same time, Craig saw it. He looked at this girl that stood before him… a pretty young woman, in reality, who had lost everything she had at the hands of Giygas… a young woman with nothing left. He realized the foolishness of his own self-pity in that moment, watching the tears stream down her face… he wanted more than anything to stop her pain. And he realized then why her weeping had awakened and frozen him in the Giygas base, saving Bobby's life and probably the lives of us his other friends.

After a few moments of pondering this realization, he spoke with wide open eyes. "I… I'm sorry…" he said lowly, walking slowly near her. "I have no right to complain… you've lost everything and you're still here… I can't believe I could be so self-centered like that, Laura. I'm sorry." He heaved a heavy sigh and repeated himself. "You're right, and I'm sorry."

She looked up at him through her tears, now no more than a foot away. "It's you, isn't it, Craig..?"

Craig nodded. "Yes, it's me… Craig Casner, commander of the Giygas Defense Initiative." He said it with resolve, sounding like his old self for the first time since he'd been rescued. He lowered his voice. "Laura, I'm so sorry for what's happened to you… I wish I could change…"

He placed a hand on her shoulder to reassure her, but then changed his mind and wrapped both arms around her and closed his eyes as she buried her face in his chest. Somewhere amongst the stillness and the tears flowing from both their eyes, he heard and then echoed her whispered words. "Thank you…"


End file.
